% ' " 



\V^' ^y>. 



a'"^ -^^jt//,?:^^' 



■I' 









V'\^'i.-^/=^, 






.■,>^ % 



aV ^, 



^^; 









\ -<- 



ri- ^- 



^^^t:^^^ <■ 



.Oo 









^' '/■>. 









V^- 



'^;/-^ 







\ ^. 



tf' 



->. 






0' 



:£^ 



/'h o ^, 



^^ V^ 



- 



.A'^ 




^ [^ ' //C dtcv <j^< cc ^^ fo^L<^ yi^cc/tc) 







"P^i Bistor^ 



rancf 




bt 




§ar|jfr<sBrntlifT8 




HISTORY 



OP 



MARIA ANTOINETTE. 



BY JOHN S. C. ABBOTT. 



^Witti fEiifltabinas. 



NEW YORK; 
HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS. 

82 CLIFF STREET. 



Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year one thousand 
eight hundred and forty-nine, by 

Harper & Brothers, 

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Southern District 
of New York. 



.■'\-^ 






^"V^ 



PREFACE. 

In this: history of Maria Antoinette, it has 
been my endeavor to give a faithful narrative 
of facts, and, so far as possible, to exhibit the 
soul of history. A more mournful tragedy earth 
has seldom witnessed. And yet the lesson is 
full of instruction to all future asres. Intelli- 
gence and moral worth combined can be the 
only basis of national prosperity or domestic 
happiness. But the simple story itself carries 
with it its own moral, and the reflections of 
the writer would encumber rather than enforce 
its teachings. 



C N T E N T S. 



Chapter ?*>?« 

I. PARENTAGE AND CHILDHOOD 13 

II. BRIDAL DAYS 37 

III. MARIA ANTOINETTE ENTHRONED 76 

IV. THE DIAMOND NECKLACE 105 

V. THE MOB AT VERSAILLES - 131 

VI. THE PALACE A PRISOxT 164 

VII. THE FLIGHT 189 

VIII. THE RETURN TO PARIS 214 

IX. IMPRISONMENT IN THE TEMPLE 239 

X. EXECUTION OF THE KING 272 

XI. TRIAL AND EXECUTION OF MARIA ANTOI- 
NETTE 290 

XII. THE PRINCESS ELIZABETH, THE DAUPHIN, 

AND THE PRINCESS ROYAL 304 



ENGRAVINGS. 



Pag» 

VIEW OF PARIS Frontispiece. 

BRIDAL TOUR 48 

VERSAILLES FRONT VIEW 1 

y 65 

VERSAILLES — COURT-YARD ) 

FOUNTAINS AT VERSAILLES ) p^ 

FOUNTAIN OF THE STAR ) 

LITTLE TRIANON 74 

GARDENS OF MARLY 93 

VIEW OF THE BASTILE . . 134 

GARDENS AT VERSAILLES 144 

MOB AT VERSAILLES 151 

GRAND AVENUE OF THE TUILERIES 156 

PALACE OF ST. CLOUD. . 184 

CAPTURE AT VARENNES „ 203 

THE TUILERIES 221 

THE TOWER OF THE TEMPLE . 257 

THE ROYAL FAMILY IN THE TEMPLE 262 

MARIA ANTOINETTE IN THE CONCIERGERIE 296 



II li'is 




MARIA ANTOINETTE. 

Chapter I. 
Parentage and Childhood. 



Maria Theresa. She succeeds to the tliroiie 

IN the year 1740, Charles VI., emperor of 
Austria, died. He left a daughter twenty- 
three years of age, Maria Theresa, to inherit the 
crown of that powerful empire. She had been 
married about four years to Francis, duke of 
Lorraine. The day after the death of Charles, 
Maria Theresa ascended the throne. The treas- 
ury of Austria was empty. A general feeling 
of discontent pervaded the kingdom. Several 
claimants to the throne rose to dispute the suc- 
cession with Maria ; and France, Spain, Prussia, 
and Bavaria took advantage of the new reign, 
and of the embarrassments which surrounded 
the youthful queen, to enlarge their own bord- 
ers by wresting territory from Austria. 

The young queen, harassed by dissensions 
at home and by the combined armies of her 
powerful foes, beheld, with anguish wliich her 



14 Maria Antoinette. [1740. 

Success of Maria Theresa's enemies. Her flight to Hungaiy. 

proud and imperious spirit could hardly endure, 
her troops defeated and scattered in every direc- 
tion, and th« victorious armies of her enemies 
marching almost unimpeded toward her capital. 
The exulting invaders, intoxicated with unan- 
ticipated success, now contemplated the entire 
division of the spoil. They decided to blot Aus- 
tria from the map of Europe, and to partition 
out the conglomerated nations composing the 
empire among the conquerors. 

Maria Theresa retired from her capital as 
the bayonets of France and Bavaria gleamed 
from the hill-sides which environed the city. 
Her retreat with a few disheartened followers, 
in the gloom of night, was illumined by the 
flames of the bivouacs of hostile armies, with 
which the horizon seemed to be girdled. The 
invaders had possession of every strong post in 
the empire. The beleaguered city was sum- 
moned to surrender. Resistance was unavail- 
ing. All Europe felt that Austria was hope- 
lessly undone. Maria fled from the dangers of. 
captivity into the wilds of Hungary. But in 
this dark hour, when the clouds of adversity 
seemed to be settling in blackest masses over 
her whole realm, when hope had abandoned ev- 
ery bosom but her own, the spirit of Maria re- 



1740.] Parentage and Childhood. 15 

The queen's firmness. The Hungarian barons . 

mained as firm and inflexible as if victory were 
perched upon her standards, and her enemies 
were flying in dismay before her. She would 
not listen to one word of compromise. She 
would not admit the thought of surrendering 
one acre of the dominions she had inherited from 
her fathers. Calm, unagitated, and determined, 
she summoned around her, from their feudal 
castles, the wild and warlike barons of Hunga- 
ry. With neighing steeds, and flaunting ban- 
ners, and steel-clad retainers, and all the para- 
phernalia of barbaric pomp, these chieftains, 
delio-htins in the excitements of war, gathered 
around the heroic queen. The spirit of ancient 
chivalry still glowed in these fierce hearts, and 
they gazed with a species of religious homage 
upon the young queen, who, in distress, had 
fled to their wilds to invoke the aid of their 
strong arms. 

Maria met them in council. They assem- 
bled around her by thousands in all the impos- 
ing splendor of the garniture of war. Maria 
appeared before these stern chieftains dressed 
in the garb of the deepest mourning, with the 
crown of her ancestors upon her brow, her right 
hand resting upon the hilt of the sword of the 
Austrian kings, and leading by her left hand 



•v..,^ 



16 Maria Antoinette. [1740. 

The queen's appeal. Kiithusiasm of her subjects. 

her little daughter Maria Antoinette. The pale 
and pensive features of the queen attested the 
resolute soul which no disasters could subdue. 
Her imperial spirit entranced and overawed the 
bold knights, who had ever lived in the realms 
of romance. Maria addressed the Hungarian 
barons in an impressive speech in Latin, the 
language then in use in the diets of Hungary, 
faithfully describing the desperate state of her 
affairs. She committed herself and her chil- 
dren to their protection, and urged them to drive 
the invaders from the land or to perish in the 
attempt. It was just the appeal to rouse such 
hearts to a phrensy of enthusiasm. The youth, 
the beauty, the calamities of the queen roused 
to the utmost intensity the chivalric devotion 
of these warlike magnates, and grasping their 
swords and waving them above their heads, 
they shouted simultaneously, " Moriamur pro 
rege nostro, Maria Theresa" — ^^ Let us die for 
our king, Maria TheresaP 

Until now, the queen had preserved a de- 
meanor perfectly tranquil and majestic. But 
this affectionate enthusiasm of her subjects en- 
tirely overcame her imperious spirit, and she 
burst into a flood of tears. But, apparently 
ashamed of this exhibition of womanly feeling, 



1740.] Parentage and Ciiii-diiood. 17 

'J'li« qut>c>n heads her itrmj-.^ She overthrows her cnemicn. 

she almost immediately regained her composure, 
and resumed the air of the indomitable sover- 
eign. The war cry immediately resounded 
throughout Hungary. Chieftains and vassals 
rallied around the banner of Maria. In person 
she inspected and headed the gathering army, 
and her spirit inspired them. "With the ferocity 
of despair, these new recruits hurled themselves 
upon the invaders. A few battles, desperate 
and sanguinary, were fought, and the army of 
Maria was victorious. England and Holland, 
apprehensive that the destruction of the Aus- 
trian empire would destroy the balance of power 
in Europe, and encouraged by the successful>^-e- 
sistance which the Austrians were now nWking, 
came to the rescue of the heroi<^ queen. The 
tide of battle was turned. The armies of 
France, Germany, and Spain were driv^en from 
the territory which they had overrun. Maria, 
with untiring energy, followed up her successes. 
She pursued her retreating foes into their own 
country, and finally granted peace to her ene- 
mies only by wresting from them large portions 
of their territory. The renown of these ex- 
ploits resounded through Europe. The name 
of Maria Theresa was embalmed throughout 
the civilized world. Under her vigorous SAvay, 

B 



18 Maria Antoinette. [1740. 

Character of Maria Theresa. Character of her husband. 

Austria, from the very brink of ruin, was ele- 
vated to a degree of splendor and power it had 
never attained before. These conflicts and vic- 
tories inspired Maria with a haughty and im- 
perious spirit, and the loveliness of the female 
character was lost amid the pomp of martial 
achievements. The proud sovereign eclipsed 
the woman. 

It is not to be supposed that such a bosom 
could be the shrine of tenderness and affection. 
Maria's virtues were all of the masculine gen- 
der. She really loved, or, rather, liked her hus- 
band ; but it was with the same kind of emo- 
tion Vvdth which an enersietio and ambitious 

a 

man loves his wife. She cherished him, pro- 
tected him, watched over him, and loaded him 
with honors. He was of a mild, gentle, con- 
fiding spirit, and would have made a lovely wife. 
She was ambitious, fearless, and commanding, 
and would have made a noble husband. In fact, 
this was essentially the relation which existed 
between them. Maria Theresa governed the 
empire, while Francis loved and caressed the 
children. 

The queen, by her armies and her political 
influence, had succeeded in having Francis 
crowned Emperor of Germany. She stood upon 



1745. J PAHi:M'Af;i: and Childhood. 19 

Crowning of Franci?. Maria Tlierosa's rer, own. 

f • ;;^ ■ 

the balcony as the imposing ceremony was per- 
formed, and was the first to shout " Loilg live 
the Emperor Francis I." Like Napoleon, she 
had become the creator of kinsfs. Austria was 
now in the greatest prosperity, and Maria The- 
resa the most illustrious queen in Europe. Her 
renown filled the civilized world. Through her 
whole reign, though she became the mother of 
sixteen children, she devoted herself with un- 
tiring energy to the aggrandizement of her em- 
pire. She united w^ith Russia and Prussia in 
the infamous partition of Poland, and in the 
banditti division of the spoil she annexed to her 
own dominions twenty-seven thousand square 
miles and two millions five hundred thousand 
inhabitants. 

From this exhibition of the character of Maria 
Theresa, the mother of Maria Antoinette, the 
reader will not be surprised that she should have 
inspired her children with awe rather than with 
affection. In truth, their imperial mother was 
so devoted to the cares of the empire, that she 
was almost a stranger to her children, and could 
have known herself but few of the emotions of 
maternal love. Her children were placed under 
the care of nurses and governesses from tiiti. 
birth. Once in every eight or ten days the 



20 


Maria Antoinette. 


[1745. 


Marie 


1 Theresa's sternness. 


Anecdote. 



queen appropriated an hour for the inspection 
of the nursery and the apartments appropriated 
to the children ; and she performed this duty 
with the same fidelity with which she examined 
the wards of the state hospitals and the military 
schools. 

The following anecdote strikingly illustrates 
the austere and inflexible character of the em- 
press. The wife of her son Joseph died of the 
confluent small-pox, and her body had been con- 
signed to the vaults of the royal tomb. Soon 
after this event, Josepha, one of the daugh- 
ters of the empress, was to be married to the 
King of Naples. The arrangements had all 
been made for their approaching nuptials, and 
she was just on the point of leaving Vienna 
to ascend the Neapolitan throne, when she re- 
ceived an order from her mother that she must 
not depart from the empire until she had, in ac- 
cordance with the established custom, descended 
into the tomb of her ancestors and offered her 
parting prayer. The young princess, in an ag- 
ony of consternation, received the cruel requisi- 
tion. Yet she dared not disobey her mother. 
She took her little sister, Maria Antoinette, 
whom she loved most tenderly, upon her knee, 
and, weeping bitterly, bade her farewell, saying 



1765.] Parentage and Childhood. 21 

Fatal result. Denth of Francis. 

that she was sure she should take the dreadful 
disease and die. Trembling in every fiber, the 
unhappy princess descended into the gloomy 
sepulcher, where the bodies of generations of 
kinoes were molderins^. She hurried throuirh 
her short prayer, and in the deepest agitation 
returned to the palace, and threw herself in de- 
spair upon her bed. 

Her worst apprehensions were realized. The 
fatal disease had penetrated her veins. Soon it 
manifested itself in its utmost virulence. After 
lingering a few days and nights in dreadful suf- 
fering, she breathed her last, and her own loath- 
some remains were consigned to the same silent 
chambers of the dead. Maria Theresa com- 
manded her child to do no more than she would 
have insisted upon doing herself under similar 
circumstances. And when she followed her 
daughter to the tomb, she probably allowed her- 
self to indulge in no regrets in view of the course 
she had pursued, but consoled herself with the 
reflection that she had done her duty. 

The Emperor Francis died, 1765, leaving 
Maria Theresa still in the vigor of life, and quite 
beautiful. Three of her counselors of state, am- 
bitious of sharing the throne with the illustri- 
ous queen, entered into a compact, by which 



22 Maria Antoinette. [1755. 

Plan of the counselors. ^ Birth of Maria Antoinette. 

they were all to endeavor to obtain her hand in 
marriage, agreeing that the successful one 
should devote the pov^er thus obtained to the 
aggrandizement of the other two. The empress 
was informed of this arrangement, and, at the 
close of a cabinet council, took occasion, with 
great dignity and composure, to inform them 
that she did not intend ever again to enter into 
the marriage state, but that, should she hereaft- 
er change her mind, it would only be in favor of 
one who had no ambitious desires, and who 
would have no inclination to intermeddle with 
the affairs of state ; and that, should she ever 
marry one of her ministers, she should immedi- 
ately remove him from all office. Her coun- 
selors, loving power more than all things else, 
immediately abandoned every thought of ob- 
taining the hand of Maria at such a sacrifice. 

Maria Antoinette, the subject of this biogra- 
phy, was born on the 2d of November, 1755. 
Few of the inhabitants of this world have com- 
menced life under circumstances of greater 
splendor, or with more brilliant prospects of a 
life replete with happiness. She was a child of 
great vivacity and beauty, full of light-hearted- 
ness, and ever prone to look upon the sunny side 
of every prospect. Her disposition was frank, 



1755.] Parentage and Childhood. 2o 

Maria Antoinette's character. Afiecting scene. 

cordial, and affectionate. Her mental endow- 
ments were by nature of a very superior order. 
Laughing at the restraints of royal etiquette, 
she, by her generous and confiding spirit, won 
the love of all hearts. Maria Antoinette was 
but slightly acquainted with her imperial moth- 
er, and could regard her with no other emotions 
than those of respect and awe; but the mild 
and gentle spirit of her father took in her heart 
a mother's place, and she clung to him with 
the most ardent affection. 

When she was but ten years of age, her fa- 
ther was one day going to Inspruck upon some 
business. The royal cavalcade was drawn up 
in the court-yard of the palace. The emperor 
had entered his carriage, surrounded by his ret- 
inue, and was just on the point of leaving, when 
he ordered the postillions to delay, and request- 
ed an attendant to bring to him his little daugh- 
ter Maria Antoinette. The blooming child was 
brought from the nursery, with her flaxen hair 
in ringlets clustered around her shoulders, and 
presented to her father. As she entwined her 
arms around his neck and clung to his embrace, 
he pressed her most tenderly to his bosom, say- 
ing, " Adieu, my dear little daughter. Father 
wished once more to press you to his heart." 



24 Maria Antoinette. [1755. 

Maria Antoinette's grief. Maria Tlieresa as a mother. 

The emperor and his child never met again. 
At Inspruck Francis was taken suddenly ill, 
and, after a few days' sickness, died. The grief 
of Maria Antoinette knew no bomids. But the 
tears of childhood soon dried up. The parting 
scene, however, produced an impression upon 
Maria which was never effaced, and she ever 
spoke of her father in terms of the warmest af- 
fection. 

Maria Theresa, half conscious of the imper- 
fect manner in which she performed her mater- 
nal duties, was very solicitous to have it under- 
stood that she did not neglect her children ; that 
she was the best mother in the world as well 
as the most illustrious sovereign. "When any 
distinguished stranger from the other courts of 
Europe visited Vienna, she arranged her six- 
teen children around the dinner-table, towering 
above them in queenly majesty, and endeavor- 
ed to convey the impression that they were the 
especial objects of her motherly care. It was 
not, however, the generous warmth of love, but 
the cold sense of duty, which alone regulated 
her conduct in reference to them, and she had 
probably convinced herself that she discharged 
her maternal obligations with the most exem- 
plary fidelity. 



1765.] Parentage and Childhood. 2d 

Mode of education. Petty nrtificea. 

The family physician every morning visited 
each one of the children, and then briefly report- 
ed to the empress the health of the archdukes 
and the archduchesses. This report fully sat- 
isfied all the yearnings of maternal love in the 
bosom of Maria Theresa ; though she still, that 
she miirht not fail in the least des^ree in moth- 
erly affection, endeavored to see them with her 
own eyes, and to speak to them with her own 
lips, as often as once in a week or ten days. 
The preceptors and governesses of* the royal 
household, being thus left very much to them- 
selves, were far more anxious to gratify the im- 
mediate wishes of the children, and thus to se- 
cure their love, than to urge them to efforts for 
intellectual improvement. Maria Antoinette, 
in subsequent life, related many amusing an- 
ecdotes illustrative of the petty artifices by 
which the scrutiny of the empress was eluded. 
The copies which were presented to the queen 
in evidence of the progress the children were 
making in hand-writing were all traced first 
m pencil by the governess. The children then 
followed with the pen over the penciled lines. 
Drawings were exhibited, beautifully executed, 
to show the skill Maria Antoinette had attain- 
ed in that delightful accomplishment, which 



26 Maria Antoinette. [1765. 

Maria's proficiency in French. She forgets her native tongue. 

drawings the pencil of Maria had not even 
touched. She was also taught to address stran- 
gers of distinction in short Latin phrases, when 
she did not understand the meaning of one sin- 
gle word of the language. Her teacher of Ital- 
ian, the Abbe Metastasio, was the only one who 
was faithful in his duties, and Maria made very 
great proficiency in that language. French 
being the language of the nursery, Maria nec- 
essarily acquired the power of speaking it with 
great fluency, though she was quite unable to 
write it correctly. In the acquisition of French, 
her own mother tongue, the German, was so to- 
tally neglected, that, incredible as it may seem, 
she actually lost the power either of speaking 
or of understanding it. In after years, chagrin- 
ed at such unutterable folly, she sat down with 
great resolution to the study of her own native 
tongue, and encountered all the difficulties 
which would tax the patience of any foreigner 
in the attempt. She persevered for about six 
weeks, and then relinquished the enterprise in 
despair. The young princess was extremely 
fond of music, and yet she was not taught to 
play well upon any instrument. This became 
subsequently a source of great mortification to 
her, for she was ashamed to confess her igno- 



1765.] Parentage and Childhood. 27 

Maria's taste for music. Her ignorance of general literature, etc. 

ranee of an accomplishment deemed, in the 
courts of Em'ope, so essential to a polished ed- 
ucation, and yet she dared not sit down to any 
instrument in the presence of others. When 
she first arrived at Versailles as the bride of 
the heir to the throne of France, she was so 
deeply mortified at this defect in her education, 
that she immediately employed a teacher to 
give her lessons secretly for three months. Dur- 
ing this time she applied herself to her task with 
the utmost assiduity, and at the end of the time 
gave surprising proof of the skill she had so 
rapidly attained. Upon all the subjects of his- 
tory, science, and general literature, the prin- 
cess was left entirely uninformed. The activ- 
ity and energy of her mind only led her the 
more poignantly to feel the mortification to 
which this ignorance often exposed her. When 
surrounded by the splendors of royalty, she fre- 
quently retired to weep over deficiencies which 
it was too late to repair. The wits of Paris 
seized upon these occasional developments of 
the want of mental culture as the indication of 
a weak mind, and the daughter of Maria The- 
resa, the descendant of the Caesars, was the butt, 
in saloon and cafe, of merriment and song. Ma- 
ria was beautiful and graceful, and winning in 



28 Maria Antoinette. [1768. 

The French teachers. Their character. 

all her ways. But this imperfect education, 
exposing her to contempt and ridicule in the 
society of intellectual men and women, was not 
among the unimportant elements which con- 
ducted to her own ruin, to the overthrow of the 
French throne, and to that deluge of blood which 
for many years rolled its billows incarnadine 
over Europe. N^ X 

Maria Theresa had sent to Paris for two teach- 
ers of French to instruct her daughter in the 
literature of that country over which she was 
destined to reign. From that pleasure-loving 
metropolis two play actors were sent to take 
charge of her education, one of whom was a 
man of notoriously dissolute character. As the 
connection between Maria Antoinette and Lou- 
is, the heir apparent to the throne of France, was 
already contemplated, some solicitude was felt 
by members of the court of Versailles in refer- 
ence to the impropriety of this selection, and 
the French embassador at Vienna was request- 
ed to urge the empress to dismiss the obnoxious 
teachers, and make a different choice. She im- 
mediately complied with the request, and sent 
to the Duke de Choiseul, the minister of state 
of Louis XV., to send a preceptor such as would 
be acceptable to the court of Versailles. After 



1768.] Parentage and Childhood. 29 

The Abb€ de Vermond. He ehamefully abuses his trust 



no little difficulty in finding one in whom all 
parties could unite, the Abbe de Vermond was 
selected, a vain, ambitious, weak-minded man, 
who, by the most studied artifice, insinuated 
himself into the good graces of Maria Theresa, 
and gained a great but pernicious influence 
over the mind of his youthful pupil. The cab- 
inets of France and Austria having decided the 
question that Maria Antoinette was to be the 
bride of Louis, who was soon to ascend the 
throne of France, the Abbe de Vermond, proud 
of his position as the intellectual and moral 
guide of the destined Queen of France, shame- 
fully abused his trust, and sought only to ob- 
tain an abiding influence, which he might use 
for the promotion of his own ambition. He 
carefully kept her in ignorance, to render him- 
self more necessary to her ; and he was never 
unwilling to involve her in difficulties, that she 
might be under the necessity of appealing to him 
for extrication. 

Instead of endeavoring to prepare her for the 
situation she was destined to fill, it seemed to 
be his aim to train her to such habits of thoufjht 
and feeling as would totally incapacitate her to 
be happy, or to acquire an influence over the 
gay but cerem.ony-loving assemblages of the 



30 Maria Antoinette. [1769 

Etiquette of the French court. Etiquette of the Austrian court. 

Tuileries, Versailles, and St. Cloud. At this 
time, the fashion of the French court led to ex- 
treme attention to all the punctilios of etiquette. 
Every word, every gesture, was regulated by 
inflexible rule. E very garment worn, and every 
act of life, was regulated by the requisitions of 
the code ceremonial. Virtue was concealed and 
vice garnished by the inflexible observance of 
stately forms. An infringement of the laws of 
etiquette was deemed a far greater crime than 
the most serious violation of the laws of morality. 
In the court of Vienna, on the other hand, fash- 
ion ran to just the other extreme. It was fash- 
ionable to despise fashion. It was etiquette to 
pay no regard to etiquette. The haughty Aus- 
trian noble prided himself in dressing as he 
pleased, and looked with contempt upon the 
studied attitudes and foppish attire of the 
French. The Parisian courtier, on the other 
hand, rejoicing in his ruffles, and ribbons, and 
practiced movements, despised the boorish man- 
ners, as he deemed them, of the Austrian. 

The Abbe de Vermond, to ingratiate himself 
with the Austrian court, did all in his power to 
inspire Maria Antoinette with contempt of Pa- 
risian manners. He zealously conformed to the 
customs prevailing in Vienna, and, like all new 



17G9.J Parentage and Childhood, ol 

Precepts of the teacher. Character of Maria Antoinette. 

converts, to prove the sincerity of his conversion, 
went far in advance of his sect in intemperate 
zeal. Maria Antoinette was but a child, mirth- 
ful, beautiful, open hearted, and, like all other 
children, loving freedom from restraint. Her 
preceptor ridiculed incessantly, mercilessly, the 
manners of the French court, where she was 
soon to reign as queen, and influenced her to 
despise that salutary regard to appearances so 
essential in all refined life. Under this tutelage, 
Maria became as natural, unguarded, and free 
as a mountain maid. She smiled or wept, as 
the mood was upon her. She was cordial to- 
ward those she loved, and distant and reserved 
toward those she despised. She cared not to 
repress her emotions of sadness or mirthfulness 
as occasions arose to excite them. She was 
conscientious, and unwilling to do that which 
she thought to be wrong, and still she was im- 
prudent, and troubled not herself with the in- 
terpretation which others might put upon her 
conduct. She prided herself a little upon her 
independence and recklessness of the opinions 
of others, and thus she was ever incurring un- 
deserved censure, and becoming involved in un- 
merited difficulties^ She was, in heart, truly a 
noble girl. Her faults were the excesses of a 



o2 Maria Antoinette. [1769. 

r . - . . ^ 

Maria a! noble girl. Her virtues and her fouits. 

generous and magnanimous spirit. Though she 
inherited much of the imperial energy of her 
mother, it was tempered and adorned with the 
mildness and affectionateness of her father. Her 
education had necessarily tended to induce her 
to look down with aristocratic pride upon those 
beneath her in rank in life, and to dream that 
the world and all it inherits was intended for 
the exclusive benefit of kings and queens. Still, 
the natural goodness of her heart ever led her 
to acts of kindness and generosity. She thus 
won the love, almost without seeking it, of all 
who knew her well. Her faults were the una- 
voidable effect of her birth, her education, and 
all those nameless but untoward influences 
which surrounded her from the cradle to the 
grave. Her virtues were all her own, the in- 
stinctive emotions of a frank, confiding, and 
magnanimous spirit. >C 

The childhood of Maria Antoinette was proT)- 
ably, on the whole, as happy as often falls to 
the lot of humanity. As she had never known 
a mother's love, she never felt its loss. There 
are few more enchanting abodes upon the sur- 
face of the globe than the pleasure palaces of 
the Austrian kings. Forest and grove, garden 
and wild, rivulet and lake, combine all their 



1769.] Parentage and Childhood. S3 

Palace of Schoenbrun. The scenes of Maria's cliildliood. 

charms to lend fascination to those haunts of 
regal festivity. In the palace of Schoenbrun, 
and in the imbowered gardens which surround 
that world-renowned habitation of princely 
grandeur, Maria passed many of the years of 
her childhood. Now she trod the graveled walk, 
pursuing the butterfly, and gathering the flow- 
ers, with brothers and sisters joining in the rec- 
reation. Now the feet of her pony scattered 
the pebbles of the path, as the little troop of 
equestrians cantered beneath the shade of ma- 
jestic elms. Now the prancing steeds draw 
them in the chariot, through the infinitely di- 
versified drives, and the golden leaves of au- 
tumn float gracefully through the still air upon 
their heads. The boat, with damask cushions 
and silken awning, invites them upon the lake. 
The strong arms of the rowers bear them with 
fairy motion to sandy beach and jutting head- 
land, to island, and rivulet, and bay, v/hile swans 
and water-fowl, of every variety of plumage, 
sport before them and around them. Such were 
the scenes in which Maria Antoinette passed 
the first fourteen years of her life. Every want 
which wealth could supply was gratified. 
"What a destiny!" exclaimed a Frenchman, 
as he looked upon one similarly situated, "what 

C 



84 Maria Aivtoinette. [1769. 

Personal appearance of Maria. Description of Lamartine. 

a destiny ! young, rich, beautiful, and an arch- 
duchess ! Ma foi ! quel destine I" 

The personal appearance of Maria Antoi- 
nette, as she bloomed into womanhood, is thus 
described by Lamartine. "Her beauty daz- 
zled the whole kingdom. She was of a tall, 
graceful figure, a true daughter of the Tyrol. 
The natural majesty of her carriage destroyed 
none of the graces of her movements ; her neck, 
rising elegantly and distinctly from her shoul- 
ders, gave expression to every attitude. - The 
woman was perceptible beneath the queen, the 
tenderness of heart was not lost in the elevation 
of her destiny. Her light brown hair was long 
and silky ; her forehead, high and rather pro- 
jecting, was united to her temples by those fine 
curves which give so much delicacy and ex- 
pression to that seat of thought, or the soul in 
woman ; her eyes, of that clear blue which re- 
call the skies of the north or the waters of the 
Danube ; an aquiline nose, the nostrils open and 
slightly projecting, where emotions palpitate 
and courage is evidenced ; a large mouth, Aus- 
trian lips, that is, projecting and well defined ; 
an oval countenance, animated, varying, impas- 
sioned, and the ensemble of these features, re- 
plete with that expression, impossible to de- 



1770.] Parentagf^. and Childhood. 35 

Maria's betrotlial. Its motives. 

scribe, which emanates from the look, the 
shades, the reflections of the face, which en- 
compasses it with an iris like that of the warm 
and tinted vapor, which bathes objects in full 
sunlis^ht — the extreme loveliness which the ideal 
conveys, and which, by giving it life, increases 
its attraction. "With all these charms, a soul 
yearning to attach itself, a heart easily moved, 
but yet earnest in desire to fix itself; a pensive 
and intelligent smile, with nothing of vacuity 
in it, because it felt itself worthy of friendships. 
Such was Maria Antoinette as a woman." 

When but fourteen years of age she was af- 
iianced as the bride of young Louis, the grand- 
son of Louis XV., and heir apparent to the 
throne of France. Neither of the youthful 
couple had ever seen each other, and neither of 
tiiem had any thing to do in forming the con- 
nection. It was deemed expedient by the cab- 
inets of Versailles and Vienna that the two 
should be united, in order to promote friendly 
alliance between France and Austria. Maria 
Antoinette had never dreamed even of question- 
ing any of her mother's arrangements, and con- 
sequently she had no temptation to consider 
whether she liked or disliked the plan. She 
had been trained to the most unhesitating: sub- 



36 Maria Antoinette. [1770. 

Maria's feelings on leaving Schoenbrun. Her love for her home. 

mission to maternal authority. The childish 
heart of the mirth -loving princess was doubt- 
less dazzled with the anticipations of the splen- 
dors which awaited her at Versailles and St. 
Cloud. But when she bade adieu to the gar- 
dens of Schoenbrun, and left the scenes of her 
childhood, she entered upon one of the wildest 
careers of terror and of suffering which mortal 
footsteps have ever trod. The parting from her 
mother gave her no especial pain, for she had 
ever looked up to her as to a superior being, to 
whom she was bound to render homage and 
obedience, rather than as to a mother around 
whom the affections of her heart were entwined. 
But she loved her brothers and sisters most ten- 
derly. She was extremely attached to the hap- 
py home where her childish heart had basked, 
in all childish pleasures, and many were the 
tears she shed when she looked back from the 
eminences which surround Vienna upon those 
haunts to which she was destined never again 
to return. 



1770.] Bridal Days. 37 

Louis XV. Prince Louis. 



Chapter II. 

Bridal Days. 

"VT^HEN Maria Antoinette was fifteen years 
^ * of age, a light-hearted, blooming, beauti- 
ful girl, hardly yet emergmg from the period 
of childhood, all Austria, indeed all Europe, 
was interested in the preparations for her nup- 
tials with the destined Kins^ of France. Louis 
XV. still sat upon the throne of Charlemagne. 
His eldest son had died about ten years before, 
leaving a little boy, some twelve years of age, 
to inherit the crown his father had lost by death. 
The young Louis, grandchild of the reigning 
king, was mild, inoffensive, and bashful, with 
but little energy of mind, with no ardor of feel- 
ing, and singularly destitute of all passions. He 
was perfectly exemplary in his conduct, per- 
haps not so much from inherent strength of 
principle as from possessing that peculiarity of 
temperament, cold and phlegmatic, which feels 
not the power of temptation. He submitted 
passively to the arrangements for his marriage, 
never manifesting the slightest emotion of pleas- 



88 Maria Antoinette. [1770. 

Madame du Barri. Her dissolute character. 

ure or repugnance in view of his approaching 
alliance with one of the most beautiful and fas- 
cinating princesses of Europe. Louis was en- 
tirely insensible to all the charms of female 
beauty, and seemed incapable of feeling the 
emotion of love. 

Louis XV., a pleasure-loving, dissolute man, 
had surrounded his throne with all the attrac- 
tions of fashionable indulgence and dissipation. 
There was one woman in his court, Madame 
du Barri, celebrated in the annals of profligacy, 
who had acquired an entire ascendency over the 
mind of the king. The disreputable connection 
existing between her and the monarch exclud- 
ed her from respect, and yet the king loaded her 
with honors, received her at his table, and forced 
her society upon all the inmates of the palace. 
The court was full of jealousies and bickerings ; 
and while one party were disposed to welcome 
Maria Antoinette, hoping that she would es- 
pouse and strengthen their cause, the other par- 
ty looked upon her with suspicion and hostility, 
and prepared to meet her with all the weapons 
of annoyance. 

Neither morals nor religion were then of any 
repute in the court of France. Vice did not 
even affect concealment. The children of Louis 



1770.] Bridal Days. 39 

Children of Louis XV. Anecdote of Madame du Karri. 



XV. were educated, or rather not educated, in 
a nunnery. The Princess Louisa, when twelve 
years of age, knew not the letters of her alpha- 
bet. When the children did wrong, the sacred 
sisters sent them, for penance, into the dark, 
damp, and gloomy sepulcher of the convent, 
where the remains of the departed nuns were 
moldering to decay. Here the timid and su- 
perstitious girls, in an agony of terror, were 
sent alone, to make expiation for some childish 
offense. The little Princess Victoire, who was 
of a very nervous temperament, was thrown 
into convulsions by this harsh treatment, and 
the injury to her nervous system was so irrep- 
arable, that during her whole life she was ex- 
posed to periodical paroxysms of panic terror. 

One day the king, when sitting with Ma- 
dame du Barri, received a package of letters. 
The pett-ed favorite, suspecting that one of them 
was from an enemy of hers, snatched the pack- 
et from the king's hand. As he endeavored to 
regain it, she resisted, and ran two or three 
times around the table, which was in the cen- 
ter of the room, eagerly pursued by the irrita- 
ted monarch. At length, in the excitement of 
this most strange conflict, she threw the letters 
into the glowing fire of the grate, where they 



40 Maria Antoinette. [1770. 

Madame du Barri's beauty. Her political influence. 

were all consumed. The king, enraged beyond 
endurance, seized her by the shoulders, and 
thrust her violently out of the room. After a 
few hours, however, the weak-minded monarch 
called upon her. The countess, trembling in 
view of her dismissal, with its dreadful conse- 
quences of disgrace and beggary, threw herself 
at his feet, bathed in tears, and they were rec- 
onciled. 

The remaining history of this celebrated wom- 
an is so remarkable that we can not refrain from 
briefly recording it. Her marvelous beauty had 
inflamed the passions of the king, and she had 
obtained so entire an ascendency over his mind 
that she was literally the monarch of France. 
The treasures of the empire were emptied into 
her lap. Notwithstanding the stigma attached 
to her position, the nation, accustomed to this 
laxity of morals, submitted to the yoke. As 
the idol of the king, and the dispenser of hon- 
ors and powers, the clergy, the nobility, the 
philosophers, all did her homage. She was still 
young, and in all the splendor of her ravishing 
beauty, when the king died. For the sake of 
appearances, she retired for a few months into 
a nunnery. Soon, however, she emerged again 
into the gay world. Her limitless power over 

# 



1770.] Bridal Days. 41 

Madame du Barri's pavilion. The Duke de Brissac. 

the voluptuous old monarch had enabled her to 
amass an enormous fortune. With this she 
reared and embellished for herself a mas^nifi- 
cent retreat, adorned with more than regal 
splendor, in the vicinity of Paris — the Pavilion 
de Luciennes, on the borders of the forest of 
St. Germain. The old Duke de Brissac, who 
had long been an admirer of her charms, here 
lived with her in unsanctified union. Almost 
universal corruption at that time pervaded the 
nobility of France — one of the exciting causes 
of the Revolution. Though excluded from ap- 
pearing at the court of Louis XVI. and Maria 
Antoinette, her magnificent saloons were crowd- 
ed by those ever ready to worship at the shrine 
of wealth, and rank, and power. But, as the 
stormy days of the Revolution shed their gloom 
over France, and an infuriated populace were 
wreaking their vengeance upon the throne and 
the nobles, Madame du Barri, terrified by the 
scenes of violence daily occurring, prepared to 
fly from France. She invested enormous funds 
in England, and one dark night went out with 
the Duke de Brissac alone, and, by the dim 
light of a lantern, they dug a hole under the 
foot of a tree in the park, and buried much of 
the treasure which she was unable to take away 



42 Maria Antoinette. [1770. 

Madame du Ban-i'a flight. She is beti-ayed. 

with her. In disguise, she reached the coast of 
France, and escaped across the Channel to En- 
gland. Here she devoted her immense revenue 
to the relief of the emigrants who were every 
day flying in dismay from the horrors with 
which they were surrounded. The Duke de 
Brissac, who was commander of the constitu- 
tional guard of the king, appeared at Versailles 
in an hour of great excitement. The mob at- 
tacked him. He was instantly assassinated. 
His head, covered with the white locks of age, 
was cut off, and planted upon one of the pali- 
sades of the palace gates, a fearful warning to 
all who were suspected of advocating the cause 
of the king. 

And now no one knew of the buried treasure 
but Madame du Barri herself She, anxious to 
regain them, ventured, in disguise, to return to 
France to disinter her diamonds, and take them 
with her to England. A young fiegro servant, 
whom she had pampered with every indulgence, 
and had caressed with the fondness with which 
a mother fondles her child, whom she had caus- 
ed to be painted by her side in her portraits, saw 
his mistress and betrayed her. She was imme- 
diately seized by the mob, and dragged before 
the revolutionary tribunal of Lucienncs. She 



1793.J Bridal Days. 43 

Condeninatio-n of Madame du Barii. Her anguish and despair. 

was condemned as a Royalist, and was hurried 
along in the cart of the condemned, amid the 
execrations and jeers of the delirious mob, to 
the guillotine. Her long hair was shorn, that 
the action of the knife might be unimpeded ; 
but the clustering ringlets, in beautiful profu- 
sion, fell over her brow and temples, and veiled 
her voluptuous features and bare bosom, from 
which the executioner had torn the veil. The 
yells of the infuriated and deriding populace fill- 
ed the air, as they danced exultingly around the 
aristocratic courtesan. But the shrieks of the 
unhappy victim pierced shrilly through them 
all. She was frantic with terror. Her whole 
soul was unnerved, and not one emotion of for- 
titude remained to sustain the woman of pleas- 
ure through her dreadful doom. With floods 
of tears, and gestures of despair, and beseech- 
ing, heart-rending cries, she incessantly ex- 
claimed, "Life — life — life! O save me! save 
me !" The mob jeered, and derided, and insult- 
ed her in every conceivable way. They made 
themselves merry with her anguish and terror. 
They shouted witticisms in her ear respecting 
the pillow of the guillotine upon which she was 
to repose her head. Struggling and shrieking, 
she was bound to the plank. Suddenly her 



44 Maria Antoinette. [1793. 

Execution of Madame du Barri. Letter from Maria Theresa. 

voice was hushed. The dissevered head, drip- 
ping with blood, fell into the basket, and her 
soul was in eternity. Poor woman ! It is easy 
to condemn. It is better for the heart to pity. 
Endowed with almost celestial beauty, living in 
a corrupt age, and lured, when a child, by a 
monarch's love,, she fell. It is well to weep 
over her sad fate, and to remember the prayer, 
''Lead us not into temptation." 

Such were the characters and such the state 
of morals of the court into which this beautiful 
and artless princess, Maria Antoinette, but fif- 
teen years of age, was to be introduced. As 
she left the palaces of Vienna to encounter the 
temptations of the Tuileries and Versailles, Ma- 
ria Theresa wrote the following characteristic 
letter to the future husband of her daughter. 

'' Your bride, dear dauphin, is separated from 
me. As she has ever been my delight, so will 
she be your happiness. For this purpose have 
I educated her ; for I have long been aware that 
she was to be the companion of your life. I 
have enjoined upon her, as among her highest du- 
ties, the most tender attachment to your person, 
the greatest attention to every thing that can 
please or make you happy. Above all, I have 
recomm^ended to her humility toward God, be- 



1770.] Bridal Days. 45 

Departure of Maria for Taris. Emotions of the populace. 

cause I am convinced that it is impossible for 
us to contribute to the happiness of the subjects 
confided to us without love to Him who breaks 
the scepters and crushes the thrones of kings 
accordins: to his will." 

The great mass of the Austrian population, 
hating the French, with whom they had long 
been at war, were exceedingly averse to this 
marriage. As the train of royal carriages was 
drawn up, on the morning of her departure, to 
convey the bride to Paris, an immense assem- 
blage of the populace of Vienna, men, women, 
and children, surrounded the cortege with weep- 
ing and lamentation. Loyalty was then an 
emotion existing in the popular mind with an 
intensity which now can hardly be conceived. 
At length, in the excitement of their feelings, 
to save the beloved princess from a doom which 
they deemed dreadful, they made a rush toward 
the carriages to cut the traces and thus to pre- 
vent the departure. The guard was compelled 
to interfere, and repel, with violence, the affec- 
tionate mob. As the long and splendid train, 
preceded and followed by squadrons of horse, 
disappeared through the gate of the city, a uni- 
versal feeling of sadness oppressed the capital. 
The people returned to their homes silent and 



46 Maria Antoinette. [1770 

Magnificent pavilion. Singular custom. 

dejected, as if they had been witnessing the ob- 
sequies rather than the nuptials of the beloved 
princess. 

The gorgeous cavalcade proceeded to Kell, on 
the frontiers of Austria and France. There a 
magnificent pavilion had been erected, consist- 
ing of a vast saloon, v^ith an apartment at either 
end. One of these apartments was assigned to 
the lords and ladies of the court of Vienna ; the 
other was appropriated to the brilliant train 
which had come from Paris to receive the bride. 
The two courts vied with each other in the ex- 
hibition of wealth and mas^nificence. It was an 
established law of French etiquette, always ob- 
served on such occasions, that the royal bride 
should receive her wedding dress from France, 
and should retain absolutely nothing belonging 
to a foreign court. The princess was, conse- 
quently, in the pavilion appropriated to the Aus- 
trian suite, unrobed of all her garments, except- 
ing her body linen and stockings. The door was 
then thrown open, and in this plight the beauti- 
ful and blushing child advanced into the saloon. 
The French ladies rushed to meet her. Maria 
threw herself into the arms of the Countess de 
Noailles, and wept convulsively. The French 
were perfectly enchanted with her beauty ; and 



1770.] Bridal Day?. 49 

Grand proccssiou. , 'Jho recCEltkiii. 

the proud position of her head and shoulders 
betrayed to their eyes the daughter of the Cae- 
sars. She was immediately conducted to the 
apartment appropriated to the French court. 
Here the few remaining articles of clothing 
were removed from her person, and she was re- 
dressed in the most brilliant attire which the 
wealth of the French monarchy could furnish. 

And now, charioted in splendor, surrounded 
by the homage of lords and ladies, accompanied 
by all the pomp of civic and military parade, 
and enlivened by the most exultant strains of 
martial bands, Maria was conducted toward 
Paris, while her Austrian friends bade her 
adieu and returned to Vienna. The horizon, 
by night, was illumined by bonfires, flaming 
upon every hill ; the church bells rang their 
merriest peals ; cities blazed with illumina- 
tions and fire-works ; and files of maidens lined 
her way, singing their songs of welcome, and 
carpeting her path with roses. It was a scene 
to dazzle the most firm and contemplative. No 
dream of romance could have been more bewil- 
dering to the ardent and romantic princess, just 
emerging from the cloistered seclusion of the 
palace nursery. 

Louis, then a vouns: man about twenty years 
J) 



50 Maria Antoinette. [177Q. 

Young Louis's indifference. The marriage. 

of age, came from Paris with his grandfather, 
King Louis XV., and a splendid retinue of cour- 
tiers, as far as Compiegne, to meet his bride. 
Uninfluenced by any emotions of tenderness, 
apparently entirely unconscious of all those mys- 
terious emotions which bind loving hearts, he sa- 
luted the stranger with cold and distant respect. 
He thought not of wounding her feelings ; he 
had no aversion to the connection, but he seemed 
not even to think of any more intimacy with 
Maria than with any other lady who adorned the 
court. The ardent and warm-hearted princess 
was deeply hurt at this indifference; but in- 
stinctive pride forbade its manifestation, except 
in bosom converse to a few confiding friends. 

The bride and her passive and unimpassioned 
bridegroom were conducted to Versailles. It 
was the 16th of May, 1770, when the marriage 
ceremony was performed, with all the splendor 
with which it could be invested. The gorgeous 
palaces of Versailles were thronged with the no- 
bility of E urope, and filled with rejoicing. The 
old king was charmed with the beauty and affa- 
bility of the young bride. All hearts were filled 
with happiness, except those of the newly-mar- 
ried couple. Louis was tranquil and contented. 
He was neither allured nor repelled by his bride. 



1770.] Bridal Days. 51 

Jusensibility of young Louis. Acclamations of the Parisians 

He never sought her society alone, and ever ap- 
proached her with the same distance and reserve 
with which he would approach any other young 
lady who was a visitor at the palace. He never 
intruded upon the privacy of her apartments, 
and she was his wife but in name. While all 
France was filled with the praises of her beauty, 
and all eyes were enchanted by her graceful de- 
meanor, her husband alone was insensible to 
her charms. After a few days spent with the 
rejoicing court, amid the bowers and fountains 
of Versailles, the nuptial party departed for 
Paris, and entered the palace of the Tuileries, 
the scene of future sorrows such as few on earth 
have ever experienced. 

As Maria, in dazzling beauty, entered Paris, 
the whole city was in a delirium of pleasure. 
Triumphal arches greeted her progress. The 
acclamations of hundreds of thousands filled the 
air. The journals exhausted the French lan- 
guage in extolling her loveliness. Poets sang 
her charms, and painters vied with each other 
in transferrins: her features to canvas. As 
Maria sat in the dining saloon of the Tuileries 
at the marriage entertainment, the shouts of 
the immense assemblage thronging the gardens 
rendered it necessary for her to present herself 



52 Maria Antoinette. [1770. 

Maria shows herself to the populace. She receives their homage. 

to them upon the balcony. She stepped from 
the window, and looked out upon the vast sea 
of heads which filled the garden and the Place 
Louis XV. All eyes were riveted upon her as 
she stood before the throng upon the balcony in 
dazzling beauty, and the air resounded with ap- 
plauses. She exclaimed, with astonishment, 
*' What a concourse!" "Madame," said the 
governor of Paris, " I may tell you, without fear 
of offending the dauphin, that they are so many 
lovers." The heir apparent to the throne of 
France is called the dauphin ; and, until the 
death of Louis XV., Louis and Maria Antoinette 
were called the dauphin and dauphiness. Louis 
seemed neither pleased nor displeased with the 
acclamations and homage which his bride re- 
ceived. His singularly passionless natur.e led 
him to retirement and his books, and he hardly 
heard even the acclamations with which Paris 
was filled. 

Arrangements had been made for a very brill- 
iant display of fire-works, in celebration of the 
marriage, at the Place Louis XV. The hun- 
dreds of thousands of that pleasure-loving me- 
tropolis thronged the Place and all its avenues. 
The dense mass was wedged as compactly as it 
was possible to crowd human beings together. 



1770.] Bridal Days. 5^ 

The fire-works. Awful couflagration. 

Not a spot of ground was left vacant upon which 
a human foot could be planted. Every house 
top, every balcony, every embrasure of a wmdow 
swarmed with the multitude. Long lines of 
omnibuses, coaches, and carriages of every de- 
scription, filled with groups of young and old, 
were intermino^led with the countless multitude 
— men and horses so crowded into contact that 
neither could move. It was an impervious ocean 
of throbbing life. In the center of this Place, 
the pride of Paris, the scene of its most triumph- 
ant festivities and its most unutterable woe, 
vast scaffolds had been reared, and they were 
burdened with fire- works, intended to surpass in 
brilliancy and sublimity any spectacle of the 
kind earth had ever before witnessed. Sud- 
denly a bright flame was seen, a shriek was 
heard, and the whole scaffolding, by some acci- 
dental spark, was enveloped in a sheet of fire. 
Then ensued such a scene as no pen can de- 
scribe and no imagination paint. The awful 
conflagration converted all the ministers of 
pleasure into messengers of death. Thousands 
of rockets filled the air, and, wdth almost the ve- 
locity of lightning, pierced their way through 
the shrieking, struggling, terror-stricken crowd. 
Fiery serpents, more terrible, more deadly than 



54 Maria Antoinette. [1770. 

Scene of horror. Consternation of Maria. 

the fabled dragons of old, hissed through the 
air, clung to the dresses of the ladies, enveloping 
them in flames, and mercilessly burning the 
flesh to the bone. Mines exploded under the 
hoofs of the horses, scattering destruction and 
death on every side. Every species of fire was 
rained dovs^n, a horrible tempest, upon the im- 
movable mass. Shrieks from the wounded and 
the dying filled the air ; and the mighty multi- 
tude swayed to and fro, in Herculean, yet una- 
vailing efibrts to escape. The horses, maddened 
with terror, reared and plunged, crushing indis- 
criminately beneath their tread the limbs of the 
fallen. The young bride, in her carriage, with a 
brilliant retinue, and eager to witness the splen- 
dor of the anticipated fete, had just approached 
the Place, when she was struck with consterna- 
tion at the shrieks of death which filled the air, 
and at the scene of tumult and terror which 
surrounded her. The horses were immediately 
turned, and driven back again with the utmost 
speed to the palace. But the awful cries of the 
dying followed her ; and it was long ere she 
could efface from her distracted imagination 
the impression of that hour of horror. Fifty- 
three persons were killed outright by this sad 
casualty, and more than three hundred were 



1770.] Bridal Days. 55 

Presents from Louis XV. Malice of Madame du BarrL 

dangerously wounded. The dauphin and dau- 
phiness immediately sent their whole income 
for the year to the unfortunate relatives of those 
who had perished on that disastrous day. 

The old king was exceedingly pleased with 
the beauty and fascinating frankness and cordi- 
ality of Maria. He made her many magnificent 
presents, and, among others, with a magnificent 
collar of pearls, the smallest of which was nearly 
as large as a walnut, which had been brought 
into France by Anne of Austria. These praises 
and attentions on the part of the king excited 
the jealousy of the petted favorite, Madame 
du Barri. She consequently became, with the 
party under her influence, the relentless and 
unprincipled enemy of Maria. She lost no 
opportunity to traduce her character. She 
spread reports every where that Maria hated 
the French ; that she w^as an Austrian in 
heart; that her frankness and freedom from 
the restraints of etiquette were the result of an 
immoral and depraved mind. She exaggerated 
her extravagance, and accused her, by whispers 
and insinuations spread far and near, of the 
most ignoble crimes of which woman can be 
guilty. The young and inexperienced dauphin- 
css soon found herself involved in most embar- 



56 Maria Antoiivette. [1770. 

Maria's difficulties. The Countess de Noailles. 

rassing difficulties. She had no kind friend to 
council her. Louis still remained cold, distant, 
and reserved. Thus, week after week, month 
after month, year after year passed on, and for 
eight years Louis never approached his youthful 
spouse with any manifestation of confidence and 
affection but those with which he would rea'ard 
a mother or a sister. Maria was a wife but in 
name. She did not share his apartment or his 
couch. Though deeply wounded by this inex- 
plicable neglect, she seldom spoke of it even to 
her most intimate friends. The involuntary 
sigh, and the tear which often moistened her 
cheek, proclaimed her inward sufferings. 

When Maria first arrived in France, the 
Countess de Noailles was assigned to her as her 
lady of honor. She was somewhat advanced in 
life, haughty and ceremonious, a perfect mis- 
tress of that art of etiquette so rigidly observed 
in the French court. Upon her devolved the 
duty of instructing the dauphiness in all the 
punctilios of form, then deemed far more im- 
portant than the requisitions of morality. The 
following anecdote, related by Madame Cam- 
pan, illustrates the ridiculous excess to which 
these points of etiquette were carried. One 
winter's day, it happened that Maria Aiitoi- 



1770.] 


B II I D A li 


Dav^. 


57 


Laws of etiquette. 






An illustration. 



nette, who was entirely disrobed in her dress- 
ing-room, was just going to put on her body 
linen. Madame, the lady in attendance, held it 
ready unfolded for her. The dame d'honneur 
came in. As she was of superior rank, eti- 
quette required that she should enjoy the priv- 
ilege of presenting the robe. She hastily slip- 
ped off her gloves, took the garment, and at that 
moment a rustling was heard at the door. It 
was opened, and in came the Duchess d'Or- 
leans. She now must be the bearer of the gar- 
ment. But the laws of etiquette would not al- 
low the dame d'honneur to hand the linen di- 
rectly to the Duchess d'Orleans. It must pass' 
down the various grades of rank to the lowest, 
and be presented by her to the highest. The 
linen was consequently passed back again from 
one to another, till it was placed in the hands 
of the duchess. She was just on the point of 
conveying it to its proper destination, when sud- 
denly the door opened, and the Countess of 
Provence entered. Again the linen passed from 
hand to hand, till it reached the hands of the 
countess. She, perceiving the uncomfortable 
position of Maria, who sat shivering with cold, 
with her hands crossed upon her bosom, with- 
out stopping to remove licr gloves, placed the 



58 Maria Antoinette. [1770. 

Countess de Noailles's ideas of etiquette. An anecdote. 

Mien upon the shoulders of the dauphiness. She, 
however, was quite unable to restram her im- 
patience, and exclaimed, " How disagreeable ! 
how tiresome I" 

Another anecdote illustrates the character of 
Madame de Noailles, who exerted so powerful 
an influence upon the destiny of Maria Antoi 
nette. She was a woman of severe manners, 
but etiquette was the very atmosphere she 
breathed; it was the soul of her existence. The 
slightest infringement of the rules of etiquette 
annoyed her almost beyond endurance. "One 
day," says Madame Campan, " I unintention- 
ally threw the poor lady into a terrible agony. 
The queen was receiving, I know not whom — 
some persons just presented, I believe. The 
ladies of the bed-chamber were behind the queen. 
I was near the throne, with the two ladies' on 
duty. All was right; at least I thought so. 
Suddenly I perceived the eyes of Madame de 
Noailles fixed on mine. She made a sign with 
her head, and then raised her eyebrows to the 
top of her forehead, lowered them, raised them 
again, and then began to make little signs with 
her hand. From all this pantomime, I could 
easily perceive that something was not as it 
should be ; and as I looked about on all sides 



1770.] Bridal Days. 59 

Maria's contempt for etiquette. The Countess de Noailles nicknamed. 

to 'find out what it was, the agitation of the 
countess kept increasing. Maria Antoinette, 
who perceived all this, looked at me with a 
smile. I found means to approach her, and she 
said to me, in a whisper, ' Let down your lap- 
pets, or the countess will expire.' All this bus- 
tle rose from two unlucky pins, which fastened 
up my lappets, w^hile the etiquette of costume 
said lappets hanging doion^'' 

One can easily imagine the contempt with 
which Maria, reared in the freedom of the Aus- 
trian court, would regard these punctilios. She 
did not refrain from treating them with good- 
natured but unsparing ridicule, and thus she 
often deeply offended those stiff elderly ladies, 
who regarded these trifles, wdiich they had been 
studying all their lives, with almost religious 
awe. She gave Madame de Noailles the nick- 
name of Madame Etiquette, to the great merri- 
ment of some of the courtiers and the great in- 
dignation of others. The more grave and state- 
ly matrons w^ere greatly shoclced by these in- 
discretions on the part of the mirth-loving queen. 

On one occasion, wdien a number of noble la- 
dies were presented to Maria, the ludicrous ap- 
pearance of the venerable dowagers, with their 
little black bonnets with great wings, and tlie 



60 


M 


ARIA 


An 


TOINETTE. 


[1770. 


Ludicrous 


scene. 






Rage 


of the old ladies. 



entire of their grotesque dress and evolutions, 
appealed so impressively to Maria's sense of the 
ridiculoos, that she, with the utmost difficulty, 
refrained from open laughter. But when a 
young marchioness, full of fun and frolic, whose 
office required that she should continue stand- 
ing behind the queen, being tired of the cere- 
mony, seated herself upon the floor, and, con- 
cealed behind the fence of the enormous hoops 
of the attendant ladies, began to play off all im- 
aginable pranks with the ladies' hoops, and with 
the muscles of her own face, the contrast be- 
tween these childish frolics and the stately dig- 
nity of the old dowagers so disconcerted the 
fun-loving Maria, that, notwithstanding all her 
efforts at self-control, she could not conceal an 
occasional smile. The old ladies were shock- 
ed and enraged. They declared that she had 
treated them with derision, that she had no 
sense of decorum, and that not one of them 
would ever attend her court again. The next 
morning a song appeared, full of bitterness, 
which was spread through Paris. The follow- 
ing was the chorus : 

" Little queen ! you must not be 
So saucy with your twenty years ; 
Your ill-used courtiers soon will see 
You pass once more the barriers." 



1775.] Bridal Days. HI. 

Habits of Maria Theresa. The dauphiness becoinea unpopular. 

While Madame de Noailles was thus tortur- 
ing Maria Antoinette with her exactions, the 
Abbe de Vermond, on the contrary, was exert- 
ing all the strong influence he had acquired over 
her mind to induce her to despise these require- 
ments of etiquette, and to treat them with open 
contempt. Maria Theresa, in the spirit of in- 
dependence which ever characterizes a strong 
mind, ordinarily lived like any other lady, at- 
tending energetically to her duties without any 
ostentation. She would ride throus^h the streets 
of Vienna unaccompanied by any retinue ; and 
the other members of the royal family, on all 
ordinary occasions, dispensed with the pomp and 
splendors of royalty. Maria Antoinette's edu- 
cation and natural disposition led her to adhere 
to the customs of the court of her ancestors. 
Thus was she incessantly annoyed by the di- 
verse influences crowding upon ner. Follow- 
ing, however, the bent of her own inclinations, 
she daily made herself more and more unpopu- 
lar with the haughty dames who surrounded her. 

It was a very great annoyance to Maria that 
she was compelled to dine every day as a pub- 
lic spectacle. It must seem almost incredible 
to an American reader that such a custom could 
ever have existed in France. The arrangement 



62 Maria Antoinette. [1775. 

Dining in public. How it was done. 

was this. The different members of the royal 
family dined in different apartments : the king 
and queen, with such as were admitted to their 
table, in one room, the dauphin and dauphiness 
in another, and other members of the royal fam- 
ily in another. Portions of these rooms were 
railed off, as in court-houses, police rooms, and 
menageries, for spectators. The good, honest 
people from the country, after visiting the men- 
ageries to see the lions, tigers, and monkeys fed, 
hastened to the palace to see the king and queen 
take their soup. They were always especially 
delighted with the skill with which Louis XV. 
would strike off the top of his egg with one 
blow of his fork. This was the most valuable 
accomplishment the monarch over thirty mill- 
ions of people possessed, and the one in which 
he chiefly gloried.' The spectators entered at 
one door and passed out at another. No re- 
spectably dressed person was refused admis- 
sion. The consequence was, that during the 
dining hour an interminable throng was pour- 
ing through the apartment ; those in the ad- 
vance crowded slowly along by those in the 
rear, and all eyes riveted upon the royal feed- 
ers. The members of the royal family of 
France, accustomed to this practice from in- 



1775.] Bridal Days. G3 

Versailles. Magnificence of the palace. 

fancy, did not regard it at all. To Maria An- 
toinette it was, however, excessively annoying ; 
and though she submitted to it while she was 
dauphiness, as soon as she ascended the throne 
she discontinued the practice. The people felt 
that they were thus deprived of one of their 
inalienable privileges, and murmurs loud and 
angry rose against the innovating Austrian. 

Much of the time of Louis and his bride was 
passed at the palaces of Versailles. This re- 
nowned residence of the royal family of France 
is situated about ten miles from Paris, in the 
midst of an extensive plain. Until the middle 
of the seventeenth century it was only a small 
village. At this time Louis XIV. determined 
to erect upon this solitary spot a residence wor- 
thy of the grandeur of his throne. Seven years 
were employed in completing the palace, garden, 
and park. No expense was spared by him or 
his successors to render it the most magnificent 
residence in Europe. No regal mansion or city 
can boast a greater display of reservoirs, fount- 
ains, gardens, groves, cascades, and the various 
other embellishments and appliances of pleas- 
ure. The situation of the principal palace is 
on a gentle elevation. Its front and wings are 
of polished stone, ornamented with statues, and 



64 Maria Antoinette. [1775. 

Gallery of paintings, statuary, etc. Gorgeous saloons, 

a colonnade of the Doric order is in the center. 
The grand hall is about two hundred and twenty 
feet in length, wdth costly decorations in mar- 
ble, paintings, and gilding. The other apart- 
ments are of corresponding size and elegance. 
This beautiful structure is approached by three 
magnificent avenues, shaded by stately trees, 
leading respectively from Paris, St. Cloud, and 
Versailles. 

This gorgeous mansion of the monarchs of 
France presents a front eight hundred feet in 
length, and has connected with it fifteen pro- 
jecting buildings of spacious dimensions, deco- 
rated with Ionic columns and pilasters, consti- 
tuting almost a city in itself One great gal- 
lery, adorned with statuary, paintings, and arch- 
itectural embellishments, is two hundred and 
thirty-two feet long, thirty broad, and thirty- 
seven high, and lighted by seventeen large win- 
dows. Many gorgeous saloons, furnished with 
the most costly splendor, a banqueting-room of 
the most spacious dimensions, where luxuri- 
ous kings have long rioted in midnight revels, 
an opera house and a chapel, whose beautifully 
fluted pillars support a dome which is the ad- 
miration of all who look up upon its graceful 
beauty, combine to lend attractions to these 




Vessailles— Front View. 





.^•:5L. 



lie: ;^-^ 



Versaxlles — Court Yard. 



1775.] Bridal Days. 67 

Splendid gardens. Other palaces. 

royal abodes such as few other earthly mansions 
can rival, and none, perhaps, eclipse. The gar- 
dens, in the midst of which this voluptuous res- 
idence reposes, are equal in splendor to the pal- 
ace they are intended to adorn. Here the kings 
of France had rioted in boundless profusion, and 
every conceivable appliance of pleasure was col- 
lected in these abodes, from which all thoughts 
of retribution were studiously excluded. The 
expense incurred in rearing and embellishing 
this princely structure has amounted to un- 
counted millions. But we must not forget that 
these millions were wrested from the toiling 
multitude, who dwelt in mud hovels, and ate 
the coarsest food, that their proud and licen- 
tious rulers might be " clothed in purple and fine 
linen, and fare sumptuously every day." Such 
was the home to which the beautiful Maria An- 
toinette, the bride of fifteen, was introduced ; 
and in the midst of temptations to which such 
voluptuousness exposed her, she entered upon 
her dark and gloomy career. This, however, 
was but one of her abodes. It was but one 
even of her country seats. At Versailles there 
were other palaces, in the construction and the 
embellishment of which the revenues of the 
kingdom had been lavished, and in whose lux- 



68 Maria Antoinette. [1775. 

The Great and the Little Trianon. Gai'dens, cascades, etc. 

urious chambers all the laws of God had been 
openly set at defiance by those earthly kings 
who ever forgot that there was one enthroned 
above them as the King of kings. 

Within the circuit of the park are two smaller 
palaces, called the Great and the Little Trianon. 
These may be called royal residences in minia- 
ture ; seats to which the king and queen retired 
when desirous of laying aside their rank and 
state. The Little Trianon was a beautiful pal- 
ace, about eighty feet square. It was built by 
Louis XV. for Madame du Barri. Its archi- 
tectural style was that of a Roman pavilion, 
and it was surrounded with gardens ornamented 
in the highest attainments of French and En- 
glish art, diversified with temples, cottages, and 
cascades. This was the favorite retreat of Ma- 
ria Antoinette. This she regarded as peculiarly 
her home. Here she was for a time compar- 
atively happy. Though living in the midst of 
all the jealousies, and intrigues, and bicker- 
ings of a court, and though in heart deeply 
pained by the strange indifference and neglect 
which her husband manifested toward her per- 
son, the buoyancy of her youthful spirit enabled 
her to triumph, in a manner, over those influ- 
ences of depression, and she was the life and the 




Fountain of the Stab 



1775.] Bridal Days. 71 

Nature of Maria's niind. Walks in the garden. 

ornament of every gay scene. As her mind 
had been but little cultivated, she had but few 
resources within herself to dispel that ennui 
which is the great foe of the votaries of fashion ; 
and, unconscious of any other sources of enjoy- 
ment, she plunged with all the zest of novelty 
into an incessant round of balls, operas, thea- 
ters, and masquerades. Her mind, by nature, 
was one of the noblest texture, and by suitable 
culture might have exulted in the appreciation 
of all that is beautiful and sublime in the world 
of nature and in the realms of thought. She 
loved the retirement of the Little Trianon. She 
loved, in the comparative quietude of that min- 
iature palace, of that royal home, to shake off 
all the restraints of regal state, and to live with 
a few choice friends in the freedom of a private 
lady. Unattended she rambled among the flow- 
ers of the garden ; and in the bright moonlight, 
leaning upon the arm of a female friend, she 
forgot, as she gazed upon the moon, and the 
stars, and all the somber glories of the night, 
that she was a queen, and rejoiced in those 
emotions common to every ennobled spirit. Here 
she often lingered in the midst of congenial joys, 
till the murmurs of courtiers drew her away to 
the more exciting, but far less satisfying scenes 



72 Maria Antoinette. [1775. 

Maria's want of educati on. She attempts to supply it 

of fashionable pleasure. She often lamented 
bitterly, and even with tears, her want of in- 
tellectual cultivation, and so painfully felt her 
inferiority when in the society of ladies of intel- 
ligence and highly-disciplined minds, that she 
sought to surround herself with those whose 
tastes were no more intellectual than her own. 
"What a resource," she once exclaimed, "amid 
the casualties of life, is a well-cultivated mind ! 
One can then be one's own companion, and find 
society in one's own thoughts." Here, in her 
Little Trianon, she made several unavailing at- 
tempts to retrieve, by study, those hours of child- 
hood which had been lost. But it was too late. 
For a few days, with great zeal and self-denial, 
she would persevere in secluding herself in the 
library with her books. But it was in vain for 
the Queen of France to strive again to become 
a school-girl. Those days had passed forever. 
The innumerable interruptions of her station 
frustrated all her endeavors, and she was com- 
pelled to abandon the attempt in sorrow and 
despair. We know not upon how trivial events 
the great destinies of the world are suspended ; 
and had the Queen of France possessed a high- 
ly-disciplined mind — had she been familiar with 
the teachings of history, and been capable of 




•mi^ili '^'v \ .■ 



1775.] Bridal Days. 75 

Maria's enemies. Their malignant slanders. 

inspiring respect by her intellectual attainments, 
it is far from impossible that she might have 
lived and died in peace. But almost the only 
hours of enjoyment which shone upon Maria 
while Queen of France, was when she forgot 
that she was a queen, and, like a village maid- 
en, loitered through the gardens and the groves 
in the midst of which the Little Trianon was 
embowered. 

The enemies of Maria had sedulously en- 
deavored to spread the report through France 
that she was still in heart an Austrian ; that 
she loved only the country she had left, and 
that she had no affection for the country over 
which she was to reign as queen. They falsely 
and malignantly spread the report that she had 
changed the name of Little Trianon into Little 
Vienna. The rumor spread rapidly. It exci- 
ted great displeasure. The indignant denials 
of Maria were disregarded. Thus the number 
of her enemies was steadily increasing. 

Another unfortunate occurrence took place, 
which rendered her still more unpopular at court. 
Her brother Maximilian, a vain and fooHsh 
young man, made a visit to his sister at the 
court of Versailles, not traveling in his own 
proper rank, but under an assumed name. It 



76 Maria Antoinette. [1775. 

Visit of Maximilian. A quarrel about forms. 

was quite common with princes of the blood- 
royal, for various reasons, thus to travel. The 
young Austrian prince insisted that the first 
visit was due to him from the princes of the roy- 
al family in France. They, on the contrary, 
insisted that, as he was not traveling in his own 
name, and in the recognition of his own proper 
rank, it was their duty to regard him as of the 
character he had assumed, and as this was of 
a rank inferior to that of a royal prince, it could 
not be their duty to pay the first visit. The 
dispute ran high. Maria, seconded by the Abbe 
Vermond, took the part of her brother. This 
greatly offended many of the highest nobility of 
the realm. It became a family quarrel of great 
bitterness. A thousand tongues were busy 
whispering malicious accusations against Ma- 
ria. Ribald songs to sully her name were hawk- 
ed through the streets. Care began to press 
heavily upon the brow of the dauphiness, and 
sorrow to spread its pallor over her cheek. Her 
high spirit could not brook the humility of en- 
deavoring the refutation of the calumnies urged 
against her. Still, she was too sensitive not to 
feel them often with the intensest anguish. 
Her husband was comparatively a stranger to 
her. He bowed to her with much civility when 



1775.] Bridal Days. 77 

Unexpected tenderness of Louis. 

they met, but never addressed her with a word 
or gesture of tenderness, or manifested the least 
desire to see her alone. One evening, when 
walking in the garden of Little Trianon, he as- 
tonished the courtiers, and almost overpowered 
Maria with delightful emotions, by offering her 
his arm. This was the most affectionate act 
with whi'jl he had ever approached her. Such 
were the l-idal days of Maria Antoinette. 

X 



78 Maria Antoinette. [1774. 

Louis XV. seized with small-pox. Flight of the courtiers 



Chapter III. 

Maria Antoinette Enthroned. 

TN the year 1774, about four years after the 
-■- marriage of Maria Antoinette and Louis, 
the dissolute old king, Louis XV., in his palace 
at Versailles, surrounded by his courtiers and 
his lawless pleasures, was taken sick. The 
disease soon developed itself as the small-pox in 
its most virulent form. The physicians, know- 
ing the terror with which the conscience-smitten 
monarch regarded death, feared to inform him 
of the nature of his disease. 

" What are these pimples," inquired the king, 
" which are breaking out all over my body ?" 

" They are little pustules," was the reply 
" which require three days in forming, three in 
suppurating, and three in drying." 

The dreadful malady which had seized upon 
the king was soon, however, known throughout 
the court, and all fled from the infection. The 
miserable monarch, hated by his subjects, de- 
spised by his courtiers, and writhing under the 
scorpion lash of his own conscience, was left to 



1774.] Maria Enthroned. 79 

The Marchioness du Pompadour. Her dissolute ch iracter. 

groan and die alone. It was a horrible termi- 
nation of a most loathsome life. 

The vices of Louis XV. sowed the seeds ol 
the French Revolution. Two dissolute women^ 
notorious on the page of history, each, in their 
turn, governed him and France. The Marchion- 
ess du Pompadour was his first favorite. Am- 
bitious, shrewd, unprincipled, and avaricious, 
she held the weak-minded king entirely under 
her control, and spread throughout the court 
an influence so contaminating that the whole 
empire was infected with the demoralization. 
Upon this woman he squandered almost the rev- 
enues of the kingdom. The celebrated Pare au 
Cerf, the scene of almost unparalleled voluptu- 
ousness, was reared for her at an expense of 
twenty millions of dollars. After her charms 
had faded, she still contrived to retain her po- 
Ktical influence over the pliant monarch, until 
she died, at the age of forty-four, universally de- 
tested. 

Madame du Barri, of whom we have before 
spoken, succeeded the Marchioness du Pompa- 
dour in this post of infamy. The king lavished 
upon her, in the short space of eight years, more 
than ten millions of dollars. For her he erect- 
ed the Little Trianon, with its gardens, parks, 



80 Maria Antoinette. [1774. 

Debauchery of Louis XV. He squanders the public revenue. 

and fountains, a temple of pleasure dedicated 
to lawless passion. The king had totally neg- 
lected the interests of his majestic empire, con- 
secrating every moment of time to his own sens- 
ual gratification. The revenues of the realm 
were squandered in the profligacy and carous- 
ings of his court. The people were regarded 
merely as servants who were to toil to minister 
to the voluptuous indulgence of their masters. 
They lived in penury, that kings, and queens, 
and courtiers might revel in all imaginable 
magnificence and luxury. This was the ulti- 
mate cause of that terrible outbreak which 
eventually crushed Maria Antoinette beneath 
the ruins of the French monarchy. Louis XV., 
in his shameless debaucheries, not only expend- 
ed every dollar upon which he could lay his 
hands, but at his death left the kingdom in- 
volved in a debt of four hundred millions of dol- 
lars, which was to be paid from the scanty earn- 
ings of peasants and artisans whose condition 
was hardly superior to that of the enslaved la- 
borers on the plantations of Carolina and Lou- 
isiana. But I am wandering from my story. 

In a chamber of the palace of the Little Tri- 
anon we left the king dying of the confluent 
small-pox. The courtiers have fled in conster- 



1774.] Maria Enthroned. 81 

Remorse of the king. The lamp at the window. 

nation. It is the hour of midnight, the 10th of 
May, 1774. The monarch of France is alone 
as he strucrsfles with the kin2^ of terrors. No 
attendants linger around him. Two old wom- 
en, in an adjoining apartment, occasionally look 
in upon the mass of corruption upon the royal 
couch, which had already lost every semblance 
of humanity. The eye is blinded. The swoll- 
en tonsfue can not articulate. What thouo^ht 
of remorse or terror may be rioting through the 
soul of the dying king, no one knows, and — no 
one cares. A lamp flickers at the window, 
which is a signal to those at a safe distance 
that the king still lives. Its feeble flame is to 
be extinguished the moment life departs. The 
courtiers, from the windows of the distant pal- 
ace, watch with the most intense solicitude the 
glimmering of that midnight taper. Should the 
king recover, they dreaded the reproach of hav- 
ing deserted him in the hour of his extremity. 
They hope, so earnestly, that he may not live. 
Should he die, they are anxious to be the first 
in their congratulations to the new king and 
queen. The hours of the night linger wearily 
away as expectant courtiers gaze impatiently 
through the gloom upon that dim torch. The 
horses are harnessed in the carriages, and wait- 

F 



82 Maria Antoinette. [1774. 

Death of Louis XV. Indecent haste of the courtiers. 

iiig at the doors, that the courtiers, without the 
loss of a moment, may rush to do homage to 
the new sovereign. 

The clock was toiling the hour of twelve at 
night when the lamp was extinguished. The 
miserable king had ceased to breathe. The en- 
suing scene no pen can delineate or pencil paint. 
The courtiers, totally forgetful of French eti- 
quette, rushed down the stairs, crowded into 
their carriages, and the silence of night was dis- 
turbed by the clattering of the horses' hoofs, as 
they were urged, at their utmost speed, to the 
apartments of the dauphin. 

There Maria Antoinette and Louis, with a few 
family friends, were awaiting the anticipated in- 
telligence of the death of their grandfather the 
king. Though neither of them could have cher- 
ished any feelings of affection for the dissolute old 
monarch, it was an hour to aw^aken in the soul 
emotions of the deepest melancholy. Death had 
approached, in the most frightful form, the spot 
on earth where, probably, of all others, he was 
most dreaded. Suddenly a noise was heard, as 
of thunder, in the ante-chamber of the dauphin. 
It was the rush of the courtiers from the dead 
rftonarch to bow at the shrine of the new dis- 
pensors of wealth and povrer. This extraordi- 



1774.J Maria Enthroned. 83 

Emotions otthe young king and queen. Uomage of the courtiera. 

nary tumult, in the silence of midnight, con- 
veyed to Maria and Louis the first intelligence 
that the crown of France had fallen upon their 
brows. Louis w^as then twenty-four years of 
age, modest, timid, and conscientious. Maria 
was twenty, mirthful, thoughtless, and shrink- 
ing from responsibility. They were both over- 
whelmed, and, falling upon their knees, exclaim- 
ed, with gushing tears, " O God ! guide us, 
protect us ; we are too young to govern." 

The Countess de Noailles was the first to sa- 
lute Maria Antoinette as Queen of France. 
She entered the private saloon in which they 
were sitting, and requested their majesties to 
enter the grand audience hall, where the princes 
and all the great officers of state were anxious 
to do homage to their new sovereigns. Maria 
Antoinette, leaning upon her husband's arm, 
and with her handkerchief held to her eyes, 
which were bathed in tears, received these first 
expressions of loyalty. There was, however, 
not an individual found to mourn for the de- 
parted king. No one was willing to endanger 
his safety by any act of respect toward his re- 
mains. The laws of France required that the 
chief surgeon should open the body of the de- 
parted monarch and embalm it, and that the 



84 Maria Antoinette. [1774. 

Burial of Louis XV. The king and queen leave Versailles. 

first gentleman of the bed-chamber should hold 
the head while the operation was performed. 

" You will see the body properly embalmed?" 
said the gentleman of the bed-chamber to the 
surgeon. 

" Certainly," was the reply ; '' and you will 
hold the head ?" 

Each bowed politely to the other, without the 
exchange of another word. The body, unopen- 
ed and unembalmed, was placed by a few un- 
der servants in a coffin, which was filled with 
the spirits of wine, and hurried, without an at- 
tendant mourner, to the tomb. Such was the 
earthly end of Louis XV. In an hour he was 
forgotten, or remembered but to be despised. 

At four o'clock of that same morning, the 
young king and queen, with the whole court in 
retinue, left Versailles, in their carriages, for 
Choisy. The morning w^as cold, dark, and 
cheerless. The awful death of the king, and 
the succeeding excitements, had impressed the 
company with gloom. Maria Antoinette rode 
in the carriage with her husband, and with one 
or two other members of the royal family. For 
some time they rode in silence, Maria, a child 
of impulse, weeping profusely from the emo- 
tions which moved her souL But, ere long, the 



1774.] INI A R I A E X T II R O N E D. 85 

The coronation. Knthusiasm of the people. 

mornincf da^Yned. The sun rose bri2:ht and 
clear over the hills of France, and the whole 
beautiful landscape glittered in the light of the 
most lovely of spring mornings. Insensibly the 
gloom of the mind departed with the gloom of 
nis^ht. Conversation commenced. The mourn- 
ful past was forgotten in anticipation of the 
bright future. Some jocular remark of the 
young king's sister elicited a general burst of 
laughter, when, by common consent, they wiped 
away their tears, banished all funereal looks, 
and, a merry party, rode merrily along, over hill 
and dale, to a crown and a throne. Little did 
they dream that these sunny hours and this 
flowery path but conducted them to a dungeon 
and the guillotine. 

The coronation soon took place at Rheims, 
with the greatest display of festive magnifi- 
cence. The novelty of a new reign, with a 
youthful king and queen, elated the versatile 
French, and loud and enthusiastic were the ac- 
clamations with which Louis and Maria Antoi- 
nette were greeted whenever they appeared. 
They were both, for a time, very popular with 
the nation at large, though there was in the 
court a party hostile to the queen, who took ad- 
vantage of every act of indiscretion to traduce 



86 Maria Antoinette. [1774. 

Maiia's grief. The king's estrangement. 

her character and to expose her to ignominy. 
In these efforts they succeeded so effectually as 
to overwhelm themselves in the same ruin which 
they had brought upon their victim. A deep- 
seated but secret grief still preyed upon the 
heart of Maria. Though four years since her 
marriage had now passed away, she was still 
comparatively a stranger to her husband. He 
treated her with respect, with politeness, but 
with cold reserve, never approaching her as his 
wife. The queen, possessing naturally a very 
affectionate disposition, was extremely fond of 
children. Despairing of ever becoming a moth- 
er herself, she thought of adopting some pleas- 
ant child to be her playmate and friend. One 
day, as she was riding in her carriage, a beau- 
tiful little peasant boy, about five years of age, 
with large blue eyes and flaxen hair, got under 
the feet of the horses, though he was extricated 
without having received any injury. As the 
grandmother rushed from the cottage door to 
take the child, the queen, standing up in her 
carriage, extended her arms to the old woman, 
and said, 

" The child is mine. God has given it to me 
to rear and to cherish. Is his mother alive ?" 

" No, madame !" was the reply of the old 



1774.] Maria Ex throned. 87 

The little peasant boy. Becomes a monster of ingratitude. 

AYoman. " JNIy daughter died last winter, and 
left five small children upon my hands." 

'' I will take this one," said the queen, " and 
will also provide for all the rest. Will you con- 
sent?" 

"Indeed, madame," exclaimed the cottager, 
" they are too fortunate. But I fear Jemmie 
will not stay with you. He is very Vv^ayward." 

The postillion handed Jemmie to the queen 
in the carriage, and she, taking him upon her 
knee, ordered the coachman to drive immedi- 
ately to the palace. The ride, however, was 
any thing but a pleasant one, for the ungovern- 
ed boy screamed and kicked with the utmost 
violence during the whole of the way. The 
queen was quite elated with her treasure ; for 
the boy was extremely beautiful, and he was 
soon seen frolickins^ around her in a white frock 
trimmed v/ith lace, a rose-colored sash, with sil- 
ver fringe, and a hat decorated with feathers. 
I may here mention that the petted favorite 
grew up into a monster of ingratitude, and be- 
came one of the most sanguinary actors in the 
scenes of terror which subsequently ensued. 

One would think that the enemies of Maria 
Antoinette could hardly talie advantage of this 
circumstance to her injury ; but they atro- 



88 Maria Antoinette. [1774. 

The queen's traducers. The heron's plume. 

ciously affirmed that this child was her own 
unacknowledged offspring, whose ignominious 
birth she had concealed. They represented the 
whole adventure but a piece of trickery on her 
part, to obtain, without suspicion, possession of 
her own child. Such accusations were borne 
upon the wings of every wind throughout Eu- 
rope, and the deeply-injured queen could only 
submit in silence. 

Another little incident, equally trivial, was 
magnified into the grossest of crimes. The 
Duke de Lauzun appeared one evening at an 
entertainment with a very magnificent plume 
of white heron's feathers. The queen casually 
expressed her admiration of its beauty. A lady 
immediately reported to the duke the remarks 
of the queen, and assured him that it would be 
a great gratification to her majesty to receive a 
present of the plume. He, the next morning, 
sent the plume to the queen. She was quite 
embarrassed, being unwilling to accept the 
plume, and yet fearing to wound the feelings of 
the duke by refusing the present. She, on the 
whole, however, concluded to retain it, and wore 
it once^ that she might not seem to scorn the 
present, and then laid it aside. It is difficult to 
oonoeive how the queen could have conducted 



1775.J M ARIA Enthroned. 89 

Vile slanders. Profligate character of De Lauzun. 

more discreetly in the affair. Such was the 
story of " The Heron's Plume." It was, how- 
ever, maliciously reported through Paris that 
the queen was indecently receiving presents 
from gentlemen as her lovers. " The Heron's 
Plume" figured conspicuously in many a satire 
in prose and verse. These shafts, thrown from 
a thousand unseen hands, pierced Maria Antoi- 
nette to the heart. This same Duke de Lau- 
zun, a man of noted profligacy, subsequently 
became one of the most unrelenting^ foes of the 
queen. He followed La Fayette to America, 
and then returned to Paris, to plunge, with the 
most reckless gayety, into the whirlpool of hu- 
man passions boiling and whirling there. In 
the conflict of parties he became a victim. Con- 
demned to death, he was imprisoned in the Con- 
ciergerie. Imbruted by atheism, he entered his 
cell with a merry song and a joke. He furnish- 
ed a sumptuous repast for the prisoners at the 
hour appointed for his execution, and invited 
the jailers for his guests. When the execution- 
ers arrived, he smilingly accosted them. " Gen- 
tlemen, I am very happy to see you ; just allow 
me to finish these nice oysters." Then, very 
politely taking a decanter of wine, he said, 
"Your duties will be quite arduous to-day, gen- 



■90 Maria Antoinette. [1775. 

Execution of De Lauziin. A life of pleasure. 

tlemen ; allow me the pleasure of taking a glass 
of wine with you." Thus merrily he ascended 
the cart, and beguiled the ride from the prison 
to the guillotine with the most careless pleas- 
antries. Gayly tripping up the steps, he placed 
himself in the fatal instrument, and a smile was 
upon his lips, and mirthful words were falling 
upon the ears of the executioners, when the slide 
fell, and he was silent in death. That soul must 
indeed be ignoble which can thus enter the dread 
unseen of futurity. 

There is no end to these acts of injustice in- 
flicted upon the queen. The influences which 
had ever surrounded her had made her very 
fond of dress and gayety. She was devoted to 
a life of pleasure, and was hardly conscious that 
there was any thing else to live for. In fetes, 
balls, theaters, operas, and masquerades, she 
passed night after night. Such was the only 
occupation of her life. The king, on the con- 
trary, had no taste for any of these amusements. 
Uncompanionable and retiring, he lived with 
his books, and in his workshop making trinkets 
for children. Always retiring to rest at the 
early hour of eleven o'clock precisely, he left 
the queen to pursue her pleasures until the 
dawn of the morning, unattended by him. It 



1775.] Maria Enthroned. 91 

Maria's iniprudencc. Night adventure in a harkiify-coach. 

was very imprudent in Maria Antoinette thus 
to expose herself to the whispers of calumny. 
She was young, inexperienced, and had no ju- 
dicious advisers. 

One evening, she had been out in her carriage, 
and was returning at rather a late hour, the 
lady of the palace being with her, when her car- 
riasie broke down at her entrance into Paris. 
The queen and the duchess were both masked, 
and, stepping into an adjoining shop, as they 
were unknown, the queen ordered one of the 
footmen to call a common hackney-coach, and 
they, both entering, drove to the opera-house, 
with very much the same sense of the ludi- 
crous in being found in so plebeian a vehicle, as 
a New York lady would feel on passing through 
Broadway in a hand-cart or on a w^heel-barrow. 
The fun-loving queen was so entertained with 
the whimsical adventure, that she could not re- 
frain from exclaiming, as soon as she entered 
the opera-house, to the intimate friends she met 
there, " Only think I I came to the opera in a 
hackney-coach I Was it not droll ? %\^as it not 
droll?" The news of the indiscretion spread. 
All Paris was full of the adventure. Rumor, 
with her thousand tongues, added innumerable 
embellishments. Neither the delicacy nor the 



92 Maria Antoinette. [1775 

The gardens of Marly. Their unrivaled splendor. 

dignity of the queen v/ould allow her serious- 
ly to attempt the refutation of the calumny that, 
neglected by her husband, she had been out in 
dissfuise to meet a nobleman renowned for his 
gallantries. 

Nothing can be more irksome than the fri- 
volities of fashionable life. To spend night after 
night, of months and years, in an incessant 
round of the same trivial gayeties, so exhausts 
all the susceptibilities of enjoyment that life it- 
self becomes a burden. Louis XIV. had crea- 
ted for himself a sort of elysium of voluptuous- 
ness in the celebrated gardens of Marly. Spread 
out upon the gentle declivity of an extended hill 
were grounds embellished in the highest style 
of art, and intended to rival the garden of Eden 
itself in every conceivable attraction. Pavil- 
ions of gorgeous architecture crowned the sum- 
mit of the hill. Flowers, groves, enchanting 
walks, and statues of most voluptuous beauty, 
fountains, lakes, cascades foaming over chan- 
nels of whitest marble — all the attractions of 
nature aiM art were combined to realize the 
most fanciful dreams of splendor and luxury. 
Pleasure was the only god here adored ; but, 
like all false gods, he but rewarded his votaries 
with satiety and disgust. 



) 



1775.] Maria Enthroned. 95 

Maria's visits to Marly. Heartless {raycty. 

The queen, with her brilliant retinue, made 
a monthly visit to these palaces and pleasure- 
grounds, and with music, illumination, and 
dances, endeavored to beguile life of its cares. A 
noisy concourse, glittering with diamonds and 
all the embellishments of wealth, thronged the 
embowered avenues and the sumptuous halls. 
And while the young, in the mazes of the dance, 
and in the uneasy witchery of winning and los- 
ing hearts, were all engrossed, the old, in the 
still deeper but ignoble passion of desperate 
gaming, forgot gliding time and approaching 
eternity. But the spirit of Maria was soon 
weary of this heartless gayety. Each succeed- 
ing visit became more irksome, and at last, in 
inexpressible disgust with the weary monotony 
of fashionable dissipation, she declared that she 
would never enter the gardens of Marly again. 
But she must have some occupation. What 
shall she do to orive wins^s to the lao-sfina: hours ? 

'' Has your majesty," timidly suggests a lady 
of the court, " ever seen the sun rise ?" 

" The sun rise I" exclaimed the qu'een ; '' no, 
never I What a beautiful sight it must be ! 
What a romantic adventure ! we will go to- 
morrow morning." 

The plan was immediatelv arranged. The 



96 Maria Antoinette. [1775. 

Sunrise at Marly. More food for slander. 

prosaic king would take no part in it. He pre- 
ferred quietly to slumber upon his pillow. A 
few hours after midnight, the queen, with sev- 
eral ^^ntlemen, and her attendant ladies, all in 
high glee, left the palace in their carriages to 
ascend the lofty eminence of the gardens of 
Marly to witness the sublime spectacle. Thou- 
sands of the humbler classes had already left 
their beds and commenced their daily toil, as 
the brilliant cavalcade swept by them on this 
novel excursion. It was, however, a freak so 
strange, so unaccountable, so contrary to any 
thing ever known before, that this nocturnal 
party became the theme of universal conversa- 
tion. It was whispered that there must have 
been some mysterious wickedness connected 
with an adventure so marvelous. Groups upon 
the Boulevards inquired, " Why is the queen 
thus frolicking at midnight without her hus- 
band ?" In a few days a ballad appeared, which 
was sung by the vilest lips in the warehouses 
of infamy, full of the most malignant charges 
against the queen. Maria Antoinette was im- 
prudent, very imprudent, and that was her only 
crime. 

Still, the young queen must have amuse- 
ments. She is weary of parade and splendor, 



l77o.] jNIaiua Enthroned. 97 

Simple habits of the queen. Horror of the courtiers and dowagers. 

and seeks in simplicity the novelty of enjoyment. 
Dressed in white muslin, with a plain straw hat, 
and a little switch in her hand, she might often 
be seen walking on foot, followed by a sing' ^ serv- 
ant, through the embowered paths which sur- 
rounded the Petit Trianon. Through lanes and 
by-ways she would chase the butterfly, and pick 
flowers free as a peasant girl, and lean over the 
fences to chat with the country maids as they 
milked the cows. This entire freedom from re- 
straint was etiquette in the court of Vienna ; 
it was res^arded as barbarism in the court of 
Versailles. The courtiers were amazed at con- 
duct so unqueenly. The ceremony-stricken 
dowagers were shocked. Paris, France, Eu- 
rope, were filled with stories of the wayward- 
ness, and eccentricities, and improprieties of 
the young queen. The loud complaints were 
poured so incessantly in the ear of IMaria The- 
resa, that at last she sent a special embassador 
to Versailles, in disguise, as a spy upon her 
daughter. He reported, " The queen is impru- 
dent, that is all." 

There happened, in a winter of unusual in- 
clemency, a heavy fall of snow. It was a rare 
sight at Versailles. Maria xA^ntoinette, remind- 
ed of the merry sleigh rides she had enjoyed in 

n 



98 Maria Antoinette. [1775. 

Sleigh riding. Blind man's buff and other games. 



the more northern home of her childhood, was 
eager to renew the pleasure. Some antiquated 
sledges were found in the stables. New ones, 
gay and graceful, were constructed. The hors- 
es, with nodding plumes, and gorgeous capari- 
sons, and tinkling bells, dazzled the eyes of the 
Parisians as they swept through the Champs 
Ely sees, drawing their loads of lords and ladies 
enveloped in furs. It was a new amusement 
— an innovation. Envious and angry lips de- 
clared that "the Austrian, with an Austrian 
heart, was intruding the customs of Vienna upon 
Paris." These ungenerous complaints reached 
the ear of the queen, and she instantly relin- 
quished the amusement. 

Still the queen is weary. Time hangs heav- 
ily upon her hands. All the pleasures of the 
court have palled upon her appetite, and she 
seeks novelty. She introduces into the retired 
apartments of the Little Trianon, " blind man's 
buff," " fox and geese," and other similar games, 
and joins heartily in the fun and the frolic. '' A 
queen playing blind man's buff !" Simpletons — 
and the world is full of simpletons — raised their 
hands and eyes in affected horror. Private dra- 
matic entertainments were got up to relieve 
the tedium of unemployed time. The queen 



1775. J Maria Enthroned. 99 

Dramatic entertainments. Increasing affection of the king. 

learns her part, and appears in the character and 
costume of a peasant girl. Her genius excites 
much admiration, and, intoxicated with this new 
pleasure, she repeats the entertainment, and 
alike excels in all characters, whether comic or 
tragic. The number of spectators is gradually 
increased. Louis is not exactly pleased to see 
his queen transformed into an actress, even in 
the presence only of the most intimate friends 
of the court. Half jocosely, half seriously, amid 
the rounds of applause with w^hich the royal 
actress is greeted, he hisses. It was deemed 
extremely derogatory to the dignity of the queen 
that she should indulge in such amusements, 
and every gossiping tongue in Paris was soon 
magnifying her indiscretions. 

Eight years had now passed away since the 
marriage of Maria Antoinette, and still she was 
in name only, the v.dfe of Louis. She was still 
a young lady, for he had never yet approached 
her with any familiarity with which he would 
not approach any young lady of his court. But 
about this time the kinsr 2:raduallv manifested 
more tenderness toward her. He began really 
and tenderly to love her. With tears of joy, 
she confided to her friends the great change 
which had taken place in his conduct. The va- 



100 Maria Antoinette. [1775', 

Efforts to alienate the king's affections. Agitation of the queeii. 

rious troubles and embarrassments which began 
now to lower about the throne and to darken 
their path, bound their sympathies more strong- 
ly together. Strenuous efforts were made to 
alienate the king from the queen by exciting his 
jealousy. Maria was accused of the grossest 
immoralities, and iasinuations to her injury 
were ever whispered into the ear of the king. 

One morning Madame Campan entered the 
queen's chamber when she was in bed. Sev- 
eral letters were lying upon the bed by her side, 
and she was weeping as though her heart would 
break. She immediately exclaimed, covering 
her swollen eyes with her hands, "Oh! I wish 
that I were dead ! I wish that I were dead I 
The wretches ! the monsters ! what have I done 
that they should treat me thus I it would be 
better to kill me at once." Then, throwing her 
arms around the neck of Madame Campan, she 
burst more passionately into tears. All attempts 
to console her were unavailing. Neither was 
she willing to confide the cause of her heart- 
rending grief. After some time she regained 
her usual serenity, and said, with an attempted 
smile, " I know that I have made you very un- 
comfortable this morning, and I must set your 
poor heart at ease. You must have seen, on 



1775.] Maria Enthroned. 101 

Maria's children. Royal visitora. 

some fine summer's day, a black cloud suddenly 
appear, and threaten to pour down upon the 
country and lay it m waste. The lightest wind 
drives it away, and the blue sky and serene 
^veather are restored. This is just the image 
of what has happened to me this morning." 

Notwithstanding, however, these efforts of 
the malignant, the king became daily more and 
more strongly attached to the queen. In the 
embarrassments which were gathering around 
him, he felt the support of her energetic mind, 
and looked to her counsel with continually in- 
creasing confidence. It was about nine years 
after their marriage when their first child was 
born. Three others were subsequently added 
to their family. Two, however, of the children, a 
son and a daughter, died in early childhood, leav- 
ing two others, Maria Theresa and Louis Charles, 
to share and to magnify those woes which subse- 
quently overwhelmed the whole royal family. 

During all these early years of their reign, 
Versailles was their favorite and almost constant 
abode. They were visited occasionally by mon- 
archs from the other courts of Europe, whom 
they entertained with the utmost display of 
royal grandeur. Bonfires and illuminations 
turned night into day in the groves and gardens 



102 Maria Antoinette. [1775. 

Extravagant expenditures. Rising discontents. 

of those gorgeous palaces. Thousands were 
feasted in boundless profusion. Millions of 
money were expended in the costly amusements 
of kings, and queens, and haughty nobles. The 
people, by whose toil the revenues of the king- 
dom were furnished, looked from a humble dis- 
tance upon the glittering throng, gliding through 
the avenues, charioted in splendor, and now and 
then a deep thinker, struggling against poverty 
■and want, would thus soliloquize: "Why do 
we thus toil to minister to the useless luxury 
of these our imperious masters ? Why must I 
eat black bread, and be clothed in the coarsest 
garments, that these lords and ladies may glitter 
in jewelry and revel in luxury? Why must 
my children toil like bond slaves through life, 
that the children of these nobles may be clothed 
in purple and fine linen, and fare sumptuously 
every day ?" The multitude were bewildered 
by the glare of royalty. But here and there a 
sullen fish-woman, leading her ragged, half- 
starved children, would mumble and mutter, 
and curse the '^ Austrian," as the beautiful 
queen swept by in her gorgeous equipage. 
These discontents and portentous murmurs were 
spreading rapidly, when neither king, queen, nor 
courtiers dreamed of their existence. 



1775.] Maria Enthroned. 103 

La Fayette and Franklin. The people begin to count the costs. 

A few had heard of America, its freedom, its 
equality, its fame even for the poorest, its com- 
petence. La Fayette had gone to help the Re- 
publicans crush the crown and the throne. 
Franklin was in Paris, the embassador from 
America, in garb and demeanor as simple and 
frugal as the humblest citizen, and all Paris 
gazed upon him with wonder and admiration. 
A few bold spirits began to whisper, " Let us 
also have no kine^." The fires of a volcano were 
kindling under the whole structure of French 
society. It was time that the mighty fabric of 
corruption should be tumbled into the dust. The 
splendor and the extravagance of these royal 
festivities added but fuel to the flame. The 
people began to compute the expense of bonfires, 
palaces, equipages, crown jewels, and courtiers. 
It is extremely impertinent, Maria thought and 
said, for the people to meddle in matters with 
which they have no concern. Slaves have no 
right to question the conduct of their masters. 
It was the misfortune of her education, and of 
the influences which ever surrounded her, that 
she never imagined that kings and queens were 
created for any other purpose than to live in 
luxury. The Empress Catharine II. of Russia, 
as these discontents were lOud and threatening, 



104 Maria Antoinette. [1775. 

Letter from the Empress Catharine. The clouds thicken. 

wrote to Maria Antoinette a letter, in which 
she says, " Kings and queens ought to proceed 
in their career undisturbed by the cries of the 
people, as the moon pursues her course unim- 
peded by the howling of dogs." This was then 
the spirit of the throne. ' 

And now the days of calamity began to grow 
darker. Intrigues were multiplied, involving 
Maria in interminable difficulties. There were 
instinctive presentiments of an approaching 
storm. Death came into the royal palace, and 
distorted the form of her eldest son, and by 
lingering tortures dragged him to the grave. 
And then her little daughter was taken from 
her. Maria watched at the couch of suffering 
and death with maternal anguish. The glow- 
i»2: heart of a mother throbbed within the bosom 
of Maria. The heartlessness and emptiness of 
ail other pursuits had but given intensity to the 
fervor of a mother's love. Though but twenty- 
three years of age, she had drained every cup of 
pleasure to its dregs. And now she began to 
enter upon a path every year more dark, dreary, 
and desolate, k*. 



178C.1 The Diamond Necklace. 105 

Kemark of Talleyrand. The Cardinal de Rohan. 



Chapter IV. 
The Diamond Necklace. 

ABOUT this time there occurred an event 
which, though apparently trivial, involved 
consequences of the most momentous import- 
ance. It was merely the fradulent purchase of 
a necklace, by a profligate woman, in the name 
of the queen. The circumstances were such as 
to throw all France into agitation, and Europe 
was full of the story. " Mind that miserable 
affair of the necklace," said Talleyrand ; " I 
should be nowise surprised if it should overturn 
the French monarchy." To understand this 
mysterious occurrence, we must first allude to 
two very important characters implicated in the 
conspiracy. 

The Cardinal de Kohan, though one of the 
highest dignitaries of the Church, and of the 
most illustrious rank, was a young man of vain 
and shallow mind, of great profligacy of char- 
acter, and perfectly prodigal in squandering, in 
ostentatious pomp, all the revenues within his 
reach. He had been sent an embassador to the 



106 Maria Antoinette. [1786. 

Rohan's smuggling operations. He is disgraced. 

court of Vienna. Surrounding himself with a 
retinue of spendthrift gentlemen, he endeavored 
to dazzle the Austrian capital with more than 
regal magnificence. Expending six or seven 
hundred thousand dollars in the course of a few 
months, he soon became involved in inextricable 
embarrassments. In the extremity of his dis- 
tress, he took advantage of his official station, 
and engaged in smuggling with so much eifront- 
ery that he almost inundated the Austrian cap- 
ital with French goods. Maria Theresa was 
extremely displeased, and, without reserve, ex- 
pressed her strong disapproval of his conduct, 
both as a bishop and as an embassador. The 
cardinal was consequently recalled, and, disap- 
pointed and mortified, he hovered around the 
court of Versailles, where he was treated with 
the utmost coldness. He was extremly anxious 
again to bask in the beams of royal favor. But 
the queen indignantly repelled all his advances. 
His proud spirit was nettled to the quick by his 
disgrace, and he was ripe for any desperate ad- 
venture to retrieve his ruined fortunes. 

There was, at the same time, at Versailles, 
a very beautiful woman, the Countess Lamotte. 
She traced her lineage to the kings of France, 
and, by her vices, struggled to sustain a style 



1786.] The Diamond Necklace. 107 

The Countess Lamotte. The queen's jewelry. 

of ostentatious gentility. She was consumed 
by an insatiable thirst for recognized rank and 
wealth, and she had no conscience to interfere, 
in the slightest degree, with any means which 
might lead to those results. Though somewhat 
notorious, as a woman of pleasure, to the court- 
iers who flitted around the throne, the queen 
had never seen her face, and had seldom heard 
(iven her name. Versailles was too much 
thronged with such characters for any one to 
attract any special attention. 

Maria Antoinette, in her earlier days, had 
been extremely fond of dress, and particularly 
of rich jewelry. She brought with her from 
Vienna a large number of pearls and diamonds. 
Upon her accession to the throne, she received, 
of course, all the crown jewels. Louis XV. had 
also presented her with all the jewels belonging 
to his daughter, the daupliiness, who had re- 
cently died, and also with a very magnificent 
collar of pearls, of a single row, the smallest of 
which was as large as a filbert. The king, her 
husband, had, not long before, presented her 
with a set of rubies and diamonds of a fine wa- 
ter, and with a pair of bracelets which cost forty 
thousand dollars. Boehmer, the crown jeweler, 
had collected, at a great expense, six pear-form- 



'^r^ab 



108 Maria Antoinette. [1786. 

Boehmer, the crown jeweler. The diamond ear-rings. 

ed diamonds, of prodigious size. They were 
perfectly matched, and of the finest water. They 
were arranged as ear-rings. He offered them 
to the queen for eighty thousand dollars. The 
young and royal bride could not resist the de- 
sire of adding them, costly as they were, to her 
casket of gems. She, however, economically 
removed two of the diamonds which formed the 
tops of the clusters, and replaced them by two 
of her own. The jeweler consented to this ar- 
rangement, and received the reduced price of 
seventy -two thousand dollars, to be paid in equal 
installments for five years, from the private 
purse of the queen. Still the queen felt rather 
uneasy in view of her unnecessary purchase. 
Murmurs of her extravagance began to reach 
her ears. Satiated with gayety and weary of 
jewels, as a child throws aside its play-things, 
Maria Antoinette lost all fondness for her costly 
treasures, and began to seek novelty in the ut- 
most simplicity of attire, and in the most art- 
less joys of rural life. Her gorgeous dresses 
hung neglected in their wardrobes. Her gems, 
" of purest ray serene," slept in the darkness 
of the unopened casket. The queen had be- 
come a mother, and all those warm and noble 
aflfections which had been diffused and wasted 



1786.] The Diamond Necklace. 109 

Change in the queen's Ufe. The diamond necklace. 

upon frivolities, were now concentrated with in- 
tensest ardor upon her children. A new era 
had dawned upon Maria Antoinette. Her soul, 
by nature exalted, was beginning to find ob- 
jects worthy of its energies. Rapidly she was 
groping her way from the gloom of the most 
wretched of all lives — a life of pleasure and of 
self-indulgence — to the true and ennobling hap- 
piness of benevolence and self-sacrifice. 

Bcehmer, the jeweler, unaware of the great, 
change which had taken place in the character 
of the queen, resolved to form for her the most 
magnificent necklace which was ever seen in 
Europe. He busied himself for several years 
in collecting the most valuable diamonds circu- 
lating in commerce, and thus composed a neck- 
lace of several rows, whose attractions, he hoped, 
would be irresistible to the queen. In the pur- 
chase of these brilliant gems, the jeweler had 
expended far more than his own fortune. For 
many of them he owed large sums, arid his only 
hope of paying these debts was in effecting a 
sale to the queen. 

Boshmer requested Madame Campan to in- 
form the queen what a beautiful necklace he 
had arranged, hoping that she might express a 
desire to sec it. This, however, Madame Cam- 



110 Maria Antoinette. [1786. 

The queen inspects the necklace. Answer of their majesties. 

pan declined doing, as she did not wish to tempt 
the queen to incur the expense of three hundred 
and twenty thousand dollars, the price of the 
glittering bawble. Bcehmer, after endeavoring 
for some time in vain to get the gems exposed 
to the eye of the queen, induced a courtier high 
in rank to show the superb necklace to his maj- 
esty. The king, now loving the queen most 
tenderly, wished to see her adorned with this 
unparalleled ornament, and sent the case to the 
queen for her inspection. Maria Antoinette re- 
plied, that she had already 'as many beautiful 
diamonds as she desired ; that jewels were now 
worn but seldom at court ; that she could not 
think it right to encourage so great an expense 
for such ornaments; and that the money they 
would cost would be much better expended in 
building a man-of-war. The king concurred in 
this prudent decision, and the diamonds were 
returned to the jeweler from their majesties 
with this answer : '' We have more need of ships 
than of diamonds." 

Bcehmer was in great trouble, and knew not 
what to do. He spent a year in visiting the 
other courts of Europe, hoping to induce some 
of the sovereigns to purchase his necklace, but 
in vain. Almost in despair, he returned again 



1786.] The Diamond Necklaci:. Ill 

Boehmer's embarrassment His inter\'iew with the queen 

to Versailles, and proposed the king should take 
it, and pay for it partly in instalments and partly 
in life annuities. The king mentioned it again 
to the queen. She replied, that if his majesty 
wished to purchase the necklace, and keep it 
for their daughter, he might do so. But she 
declared that she herself should never be will- 
ing to wear it, for she could not expose herself 
to those censures for extravas^ance which she 
knew would be lavished upon her. 

The jeweler complained loudly and bitterly 
of his misfortune. The necklace having been 
exhibited all over Europe, his troubles were a 
matter of general conversation. After several 
months of great perplexity and anxiety, Boehmer 
succeeded in gaining an audience of the queen. 
Passionately throwing himself upon his knees 
before her, clasping his hands and bursting into 
tears, he exclaimed, 

" Madame, I am disgraced and ruined if you 
do not purchase my necklace. I can not out- 
live my misfortunes. When I go hence I shall 
throw myself into the river." 

The queen, extremely displeased, said, *' Rise, 
Boehmer ! I do not like these rhapsodies ; hon- 
est men have no occasion to fall upon their 
Imees to make known their requests. If vou 



Il2 Maria Antoinette. [1786. 

The queen's remarks. Boehmer's confusion. 

were to destroy yourself, I should regret you as 
a madman in v/hom I had taken an interest, 
but I should not be responsible for that misfor- 
tune. I not only never ordered the article which 
causes your present despair, but, whenever you 
have talked to me about fine collections of jew- 
els, 1 have told you that I should not add four 
diamonds to those I already possessed. I told 
you myself that I declined taking the necklace. 
The king wished to give it to me ; I refused 
him in the same manner. Then never mention 
it to me again. Divide it, and endeavor to sell 
it piecemeal, and do not drown yourself. I am 
very angry with you for acting this scene of de- 
spair in my presence, and before this child. Let 
me never see you behave thus again. Go !" 

BcEhmer, overwhelmed with confusion, re- 
tired, and the queen, oppressed with a multi- 
tude of gathering cares, for some months thought 
no more of him or of his jewels. One day the 
queen was reposing listlessly upon her couch, 
with Madame Campan and other ladies of hon- 
or about her, when, suddenly addressing Ma- 
dame Campan, she inquired, 

"Have you ever heard what poor Boehmer 
did with his unfortunate necklace ?" 

"I have heard nothing of it since he left 



L7S6.] T lit: D i a ^[ o .\ d N e c k lace. 1 13 

\llegeil di.^posnl of the necklace. Prer^ent to the king's son. 



^-011," was the reply, '' though I often meet 
nuTi." 

'* I should really like to know how the unfor- 
tunate man got extricated from his embarrass- 
ments," rejoined the queen ; " and, when you 
next see him, I wish you vrould inquire, as if 
from your own interest in the aflair, without 
any allusion to me, how he disposed of the ar- 
ticle." 

In a few days iNIadame Campan met Boeh- 
mer, and, in reply to her interrogatones, he in- 
formed her that the sultan at Constantinople 
had purchased it for the favorite sultana. The 
queen was highly gratified with the good for- 
tune of the jeweler, and yet thought it very 
strange how the grand seignior should have 
purchased his diamonds at Paris. Matters con- 
tinued in this state for some time, until the 
baptism of the Duke d'Angouleme, Maria An- 
toinette's infant son. The king made his idol- 
ized boy a baptismal present of a diamond ep- 
aulette and buckles, which he purchased of Boeh- 
mer, and directed him to deliver to the queen: 
As the jeweler presented them, he slipped into 
the queen's hand a letter, in the form of a peti- 
tion, containing the following expression : 

'' I am happy to see your majesty in the pos- 

ii 



114 Maria Antoinette. [1786. 

Boehmer's note to the queen. The queen's perplexity. 

session of the finest diamonds in Europe ; and 
I entreat your majesty not to forget me." 

The queen read this strange note aloud, again 
and again exclaiming, "What does the man 
mean ? He must be insane !" She quietly 
lighted the note at a wax taper which was stand- 
ing near her, and burned it, remarking that it 
was not worth keeping. Afterward, as she re- 
flected more upon the enigmatical nature of the. 
communication, she deeply regretted that she 
had not preserved the note. She pondered the 
matter deeply and anxiously, and at last said to 
Madame Campan, 

" The next time you see that man, I wish 
that you would tell him that I have lost all 
taste for diamonds ; that I never shall buy an- 
other as long as I live ; and that, if I had any 
money to spare, I should expend it in purchasing 
lands to enlarge the grounds at St. Cloud." 

A few days after this, Bcehmer called upon 
Madame Campan at her country house, ex- 
tremely uneasy at not having received any an- 
swer from the queen, and anxiously inquired if 
Madame Campan had no commission to him 
from her majesty. Madame Campan faithfully 
repeated to him all that the queen had requested 
her to say. 



1786.] T HE Diamond Necklace. 1 15 

Boehmer's inteniew with Madame Campan. The necklace again. 

" But," rejoined Boehmer, " the answer to the 
letter I presented to her I To whom must I ap- 
ply for that?" 

" To no one," was the reply ; '' her majesty 
burned your memorial, without even compre- 
hendinsr its meaninsf." 

" Ah, madame !" exclaimed the man, trem- 
bling with agitation, ''that is impossible; the 
queen knows that she has money to pay me." 

"Money, M. Boehmer!" replied the lady; 
'' your last accounts against the queen were dis- 
charoed lonsf asro." 

"And are you not in the secret?" he rejoined. 
" The queen owes me three hundred thousand 
dollars, and I am ruined by her neglect to pay 
me." 

" Three hundred thousand dollars I" exclaim- 
ed Madame Campan, in amazement; "man, 
you have lost your senses ! For what does she 
owe you that enormous sum ?" 

" For the necklace, madame," replied the 
jeweler, now pale and trembling with the ap- 
prehension that he had been deceived. 

"The necklace again!" said Madame Cam- 
pan. " How long is the queen to be teased about 
that necklace ? Did not you yourself tell me 
that you had sold it at Constantinople ?" 



116 Maria Antoinette. [1786. 



I'lie Cardinal de Rohan. Indications of a plot. 

" The queen," added Boehmer, " requested 
me to malve that reply to all who inquired upon 
the subject, for she was not willing to have it 
known that she had made the purchase. She, 
however, had determined to have the necklace, 
and sent the Cardinal de Rohan to me to take 
it in her name." 

"You are utterly deceived, Boehmer," Ma- 
dame Campan replied ; "the queen knows noth- 
ing about your necklace. She never speaks even 
to the Cardinal de Rohan, and there is no man 
at court more strongly disliked by her." 

"You may depend upon it, madame, that 
you are deceived yourself," reiioined the jeweler. 
" She must hold private interviews with the 
cardinal, for she gave to the cardinal six thou- 
sand dollars, w^hich he paid me on account, and 
which he assured me he saw her take from the 
little porcelain secretary next the fire-place in 
her boudoir." 

" Did the cardinal himself assure you of this ?" 
inquired Madame Campan. 

" Yes, madame," was the reply. 

" What a detestable plot ! There is not one 
word of truth in it ; and you have been misera- 
bly deceived." 

"I confess," Boehmer rejoined, now trembling 



1786.] The Diamond Necklace. 117 

BcBlimer's perplexitj'. The cardinal's embarrassment 

in every joint, ''that I have felt very anxious 
about it for some time ; for the cardinal assured 
me that the queen would wear the necklace on 
Whitsunday. I was, howev^er, alarmed in see- 
ing that she did not wear it, and that induced 
me to write the letter to her majesty. Bat 
what shall I do ?*' 

" Go immediately to Versailles, and lay the 
whole matter before the king. But you have 
been extremely culpable, as crown jeweler, in 
acting in a matter of such great importance 
without direct orders from the king or queen, or 
their accredited minister." 

"I have not acted," the unhappy man replied, 
'' without direct orders. I have now in my 
possession all the promissory notes, signed by 
the queen herself; and I have been obliged tc 
show those notes to several bankers, my credit- 
ors, to induce them to extend the time of m^ 
payments." 

Instead, however, of following Madame Cam- 
pan's judicious advice, Boehmer, half delirious 
with solicitude, went directly to the cardinal, 
and informed him of all that had transpired 
The cardinal appeared very much embarrassed 
asked a few questions, and said but little. He, 
however, wrote in his diary the following mem- 



118 Maria Antoinette. [1786 

Boehmer's terror. The queen's amazement 

orandum : " On this day, August 3, Boehmei 
went to Madame Campan's country-house, and 
she told him that the queen had never had his 
necklace, and that he had been cheated." 

Boehmer was almost frantic with terror, for 
the loss of the necklace was his utter and irre- 
mediable ruin. Finding no relief in his inter- 
view with the cardinal, he hastened to Little 
Trianon, and sent a message to the queen that 
Madame Campan wished him to see her imme- 
diately. The queen, who knew nothing of the 
occurrences we have just related, exclaimed, 
^' That man is surely mad. I have nothing to 
say to him, and I will not see him." Madame 
Campan, however, immediately called upon the 
queen, for she was very much alarmed by what 
she had heard, and related to her the whole oc- 
currence. The queen was exceedingly amazed 
and perplexed, and feared that it was some 
deep-laid plot to involve her in difficulties. She 
questioned Madame Campan very minutely in 
reference to every particular of the interview, 
and insisted upon her repeating the conversa- 
tion over and over again. They then went im- 
mediately to the king, and narrated to him the 
whole affair. He, aware of the many efforts 
which had been made to traduce the character 



1786.] The Diamond Necklace. 119 

The cardinal before the king and queen. His agitation. 

of Maria Antoinette, and to expose her to pub- 
lic contumely, was at once convinced that it 
was a treacherous plot of the cardinal in revenge 
for his neglect at court. 

The king instantly sent a command for the 
cardinal to meet him and the queen in the king's 
closet. He was, apparently, anticipating the 
summons, for he, without delay, appeared be- 
fore them in all the pomp of his pontifical robes, 
but was nevertheless so embarrassed that he 
could with difficulty articulate a sentence. 

" You have purchased diamonds of Boehmer ?" 
inquired the king. 

" Yes, sire," was the trembling reply. 

" What have you done with them ?" the king 
added. 

" I thought," said the cardinal, '' that they 
had been delivered to the queen." 

" Who commissioned you to make this pur- 
chase?" 

" The Countess Lamotte," was the reply. 
" She handed me a letter from the queen re- 
questing me to obtain the necklace for her. I 
truly thought that I was obeying her majesty's 
wishes, and doing her a favor, by taking this 
business upon myself." 

" How could you imagine, sir," indignantly 



120 Maria Antoinette. [1786. 



The queen's indiguation. 'j'he forged letter. 

interrupted the queen, '^ that I should have se- 
lected you for such a purpose, when I have not 
even spoken to you for eight years ? and how 
could you suppose that I should have acted 
through the mediation of such a character as 
the Countess Lamotte ?" 

The cardinal was in the most violent agita- 
tion, and, apparently hardly knowing what he 
said, replied, '' I see plainly that I have been 
duped. I will pay for the necklace myself. I 
suspected no trick in the affair, and am ex- 
tremely sorry that I have had any thing to do 
with it." 

He then took a letter from his pocket direct- 
ed to the Countess Lamotte, and signed with 
the queen's name, requesting her to secure the 
purchase of the necklace. The king and queen 
looked at the letter, and instantly pronounced it 
a forgery. The king then took from his own 
pocket a letter addressed to the jeweler Boeh- 
mer, and, handing it to De Rohan, said, 

" Are you the author of that letter ?" 

The cardinal turned pale, and, leaning upon 
his hand, appeared as though he would fall to 
the floor. 

" I have no wish, cardinal," the king kindly 
replied, " to find you guilty. Explain to me 



1786.] The Diamond Necklace. 121 

The cardinal's confused statements. He is arretted. 

this enigma. Account for all these maneuvers 
with Boehmer. "Where did you obtain these 
securities and these promissory notes, signed 
in the queen's name, which have been given to 
Boehmer ?" 

The cardinal, trembling in every nerve, faint- 
ly replied, '' Sire, I am too much agitated now 
to answer your majesty. Give me a little time 
to collect my thoughts." 

'' Compose yourself, then, cardinal," the king 
added. " Go into my cabinet. You will there 
find papers, pens, and ink. At your leisure, 
write what you have to say to me." 

In about half an hour the cardinal returned 
with a paper, covered with erasures, and alter- 
ations, and blottings, as confused and unsatis- 
factory as his verbal statements had been. An 
officer was then summoned into the royal pres- 
ence, and commanded to take the cardinal into 
custody and conduct him to the Bastile. He 
was, however, permitted to visit his home. The 
cardinal contrived, by the way, to scribble a line 
upon a scrap of paper, and, catching the eye of 
a trusty servant, he, unobserved, slipped it into 
his hand. It was a direction to the servant to 
hasten to the palace, with the utmost possible 
speed, and commit to the flames all of his pri- 



122 Maria Antoinette. [1786. 

Arrest of Madame Lamotte. Great escitement. 

vate papers. The king had also sent officers to 
the cardinal's palace to seize his papers and seal 
them for examination. By almost superhuman 
exertions, the cardinal's servant first arrived at 
the palace, v^hich was at the distance of sever- 
al miles. His horse dropped dead in the court- 
yard. The important documents, which might, 
perhaps, have shed light upon this mysterious 
affair, were all consumed. 

The Countess Lamotte was also arrested, and 
held in close confinement to await her trial. 
She had just commenced living in a style of ex- 
traordinary splendor, and had vast sums at her 
disposal, acquired no one knew how. It is dif- 
ficult to imagine the excitement which this story 
produced all over Europe. It was represented 
that the queen was found engaged in a swin- 
dling transaction with a profligate woman to 
cheat the crown jeweler out of gems of inesti- 
mable value, and that, being detected, she was 
employing all the influence of the crown to 
shield her own reputation by consigning the in- 
nocent cardinal to infamy. The enemies of the 
queen, sustained by the ecclesiastics generally, 
rallied around the cardinal. The king and 
queen, feeling that his acquittal would be the 
virtual condemnation of Maria Antoinette, and 



1786.] The Diamond Necklace. 123 

The queen's anyniisb. The cardinul's trial. 

firmly convinced of his gnilt, exerted their ut- 
most influence, in self-defense, to bring him to 
punishment. Rumors and counter rumors 
floated through Versailles, Paris, and all the 
courts of the Continent. The tale was rehears- 
ed in saloon and cafe with every conceivable ad- 
dition and exaggeration, and the queen hardly 
knew which way to turn from the invectives 
which were so mercilessly showered upon her. 
Her lofty spirit, conscious of rectitude, sustain- 
ed her in public, and there she nerved herself 
to appear with firmness and equanimity. But 
in the retirement of her boudoir she was una- 
ble to repel the most melancholy imaginings, 
and often wept with almost the anguish of a 
burstins: heart. The sunshine of her life had 
now disappeared. Each succeeding day grew 
darker and darker with enveloping glooms. 

The trial of the cardinal continued, with va- 
rious interruptions, for more than a year. Very 
powerful parties were formed for and against 
him. All France was agitated by the protract- 
ed contest. The cardinal appeared before his 
judges in mourning robes, but with all the pa- 
geantry of the most imposing ecclesiastical cos- 
tume. He was conducted into court with much 
ceremony, and treated with the greatest defer- 



124 Maria AxNtoknette. [1786. 

The cardinal's acquittal. Chagrin of the liing and queen. 

ence. In the trying moment in which he first 
appeared before his judges, his courage seemed 
utterly to fail him. Pale and trembling with 
emotion, his knees bent under him, and he had to 
cling to a support to prevent himself from falling 
to the floor. Five or six voices immediately ad- 
dressed him in tones of sympathy, and the pres- 
ident said, " His eminence the cardinal is at 
liberty to sit down, if he wishes it." The dis- 
tinguished prisoner immediately took his seat 
with the members of the court. Havinsf soon 
recovered in some degree his composure, he 
arose, and for half an hour addressed his judges, 
with much feeling and dignity, repeating his 
protestations of entire innocence in the whole 
affair. 

At the close of this protracted trial, the car- 
dinal was fully acquitted of all guilt by a ma- 
jority of three voices. The king and queen 
were extremely chagrined at this result. Du- 
ring the trial, many insulting insinuations were 
thrown out against the queen which could not 
easily be repelled. A friend who called upon 
her immediately after the decision, found her in 
her closet weeping bitterly. " Come," said Ma- 
ria, "come and weep for your queen, insulted 
and sacrificed by cabal and injustice." The king 



178b'.] The Diamond Nkcklace. 125 

Trial of the Countess Lamotte. Her cool eftrontery. 

came in at the same moment, and said, " You 
find the queen much afflicted ; she has great 
reason to be so. They were determined through- 
out this affair to see only an ecclesiastical prince, 
a Prince de Rohan, ^Yhile he is, in fact, a needy 
fellow, and all this was but a scheme to put 
money into his pockets. It is not necessary to 
be an Alexander to cut this Gordian knot." The 
cardinal subsequently emigrated to Germany, 
where he lived in comparative obscurity till 
1803, when he died. 

The Countess Lamotte was brought to trial, 
but with a painfully different result. Dressed in 
the richest and most costly robes, the dissolute 
beauty appeared before her judges, and aston- 
ished them all by her imperturbable self-pos- 
session, her talents, and her cool effrontery. It 
was clearly proved that she had received the 
necklace ; that she had sold here and there the 
diamonds of which it was composed, and had 
thus come into possession of large sums of mon- 
ey. She told all kinds of stories, contradicting 
herself in a thousand ways, accusing now one 
and again another as an accomplice, and un- 
blushina^lv declarinsf that she had no intention 
to tell the truth, for that neither she nor the 
cardinal had uttered one single word before the 



126 Maria Antoinette. [1786. 

The countess found guilty. Bai-barous sentence. 

court which had not been false. She was found 
guilty, and the following horrible sentence was 
pronounced against her : that she should be 
whipped upon the bare back in the court-yard 
of the prison ; that the letter V should be burned 
into the flesh on each shoulder with a hot iron ; 
and that she should be imprisoned for life. The 
king and queen were as much displeased with 
the terrible barbarity of the punishment of the 
countess as they were chagrined at the acquittal 
of the cardinal. As the countess was a descend- 
ant of the royal family, they felt that the igno- 
minious character of the punishment was in- 
tended as a stigma upon them. 

As the countess was sitting^ one morninsr in 
the spacious room provided for her in the pris- 
on, in a loose robe, conversing gayly with some 
friends, and surrounded by all the appliances 
of wealth, an attendant appeared to conduct 
her into the presence of the judges. Totally 
unprepared for the awful doom impending over 
her, she rose with careless alacrity and entered 
the court. The terrible sentence was pro- 
nounced. Immediately terror, rage, and de- 
spair seized upon her, and a scene of horror en- 
sued which no pen can describe. Before the 
sentence was finished, she threw herself upon 



I7S6.] The Diamond Necklace. 127 

Brutal punishment of the countess. Her unhappy eucL 

the floor, and uttered the most piercing shrieks 
and screams. The tumult of aaritation into 
which she was thrown, dreadful as it was, re- 
laxed not the stern rigor of the law. The ex- 
ecutioner immediately seized her, and dragged 
her, shrieking and struggling in a delirium of 
phrensy, into the court-yard of the prison. As 
her eye fell upon the instruments of her igno- 
minious and brutal punishment, she seized 
upon one of her executioners with her teeth, 
and tore a mouthful of flesh from his arm. 
She was thrown upon the ground, her gar- 
ments, with relentless violence, were stripped 
from her back, and the lash mercilessly cut its 
way into her quivering nerves, while her awful 
screams pierced the damp, chill air of the morn- 
ing. The hot irons were brought, and simmered 
upon her recoiling flesh. The unhappy creature 
was then carried, mangled and bleeding, and 
half dead with torture, and terror, and mad- 
ness, to the prison hospital. After nine months 
of imprisonment she was permitted to escape. 
She fled to England, and was found one morn- 
ing dead upon the pavements of London, hav- 
ing been thrown from a third story window in 
a midnight carousal. 

Such was the story of the Diamond Neck- 



138 Maria Antoinette. [1780. 

Inrioceuce of the queen. Of De Rohan's criminality. 

lace. Thousfh no one can now doubt that 
Maria Antoinette was perfectly innocent in the 
whole affair, it, at the time, furnished her ene- 
mies with weapons against her, which they used 
with fatal efficiency. It was then represented 
that the Countess Lamotte was an accomplice 
of the queen in the fraudulent acquisition of 
the necklace, and that the Cardinal de Rohan 
was their deluded but innocent victim. The 
horrible punishment of Madame Lamotte, who 
boasted that royal blood circulated in her veins, 
was understood to be in contempt of royalty, 
and as the expression of venomous feeling to- 
ward the queen. Both Maria Antoinette and 
Louis felt it as such, and were equally ag- 
grieved by the acquittal of the cardinal and 
the barbarous punishment of the countess. 

Whether the cardinal was a victim or an ac- 
complice is a question which never has been, 
and now never can be, decided. The mystery 
in which the affair is involved must remain a 
mystery until the secrets of all hearts are re- 
vealed at the great day of judgment. If he 
was the guilty instigator, and the poor countess 
but his tool and victim, how much has he yet 
to be accountable for in the just retributions 
of eternity I There were three suppositions 



1786.] The Diamond Necklace. 129 

The three suppositions. Influence of the first. 

adopted by the community in the attempt to 
solve the mystery of this transaction : 

1. The first was, that the queen had really 
employed the Countess Lamotte to obtain the 
necklace by deceiving the cardinal. That it 
was a trick by which the queen and the count- 
ess were to obtain the necklace, and, by selling 
it piecemeal, to share the spoil, leaving the 
cardinal responsible for the payment. This 
was the view the enemies of Maria Antoinette, 
almost without exception, took of the case ; and 
the sentence of acquittal of the cardinal, and 
the horrible condemnation of the countess, were 
intended to sustain this view. This opinion, 
spread through Paris and France, was very in- 
fluential in rousing that animosity which con- 
ducted Maria Antoinette to sufferings more 
poignant and to a doom more awful than the 
Countess Lamotte could by any possibility 
endure. 

2. The second supposition was, that the car- 
dinal and the countess forged the signature of 
the queen to defraud the jeweler ; that they 
thus obtained the rich prize of three hundred 
and twenty thousand dollars, intending to di- 
vide the spoil between them, and throw the ob- 
loquy of the transaction upon the queen. The 

T 



30 Maria Antoinette. [178G. 



The third supposition. Probably the true one. 

king and queen were both fully convinced that 
this was the true explanation of the fraud, and 
they retained this belief undoubted until they 
died. 

3. The third supposition, and that which 
now is almost universally entertained, was, 
that the crafty woman Lamotte, by forgery, 
and by means of an accomplice, who very 
much, in figure, resembled Maria Antoinette, 
completely duped the cardinal. His anxiety 
was such to be restored to the royal favor, that 
he eagerly caught at the bait which the wdly 
countess presented to him. But, whoever may 
have been the guilty ones, no one now doubts 
that Maria Antoinette was entirely innocent. 
She, however, experienced all the ignominy she 
could have encountered had she been involved 
in the deepest guilt. 



1789.] The Mob at Versailles. 131 

A gathering storm. Condition of the French people 



Chapter V. 

The Mob at Versailles. 

nnHE year 1789 opened upon France lower- 
-*- ing with darkness and portentous storms. 
The events to which we have alluded in the 
preceding chapters, and various others of a sim- 
ilar nature, conspired to foment troubles be- 
tween the French monarch and his subjects, 
which were steadily and irresistibly increasing. 
The great mass of the people, ignorant, degrad- 
ed, and maddened by centuries of oppression, 
were rising, with delirious energy, to batter 
down a corrupt church and a despotic throne, 
and to overwhelm the guilty and the innocent 
alike in indiscriminate ruin. The storm had 
been gathering for ages, but those who had been 
mainly instrumental in raising it were now 
slumbering in their graves. Mobs began to 
sweep the streets of Paris, phrensied with rum 
and rage, and all law was set at defiance. The 
king, mild in temperament, and with no force 
of character, was extremely averse to any meas- 
ures of violence The queen, far more energet- 



132 Maria Antoinette. [1789. 

Forces assembled at Versailles. The populace rise upon the troops. 

ic, with the spirit of her heroic mother, would 
have quelled these insurrections with the strong 
arm of military power. 

The king at last was compelled, in order to 
protect the royal family from insult, to encamp 
his army around his palaces ; and long trains 
of artillery and of cavalry incessantly traversed 
the streets of Versailles, to prop the tottering 
monarchy. As Maria Antoinette, from the 
windows, looked down upon these formidable 
bands, and saw the crowd of generals and col- 
onels who filled the saloons of the palace, her 
fainting courage was revived. The sight of 
these soldiers, called to quell the insurgent peo- 
ple, roused the Parisians to the intensest fury. 
" To arms ! to arms ! the king's troops are com- 
ing to massacre us," resounded through the 
streets of Paris in the gloom of night, in tones 
which caused the heart of every peaceful citi- 
zen to quake with terror. The infuriated pop- 
ulace hurled themselves upon the few troops 
who were in Paris. Many of the soldiers of the 
king threw down their arms and fraternized 
with the people. Others were withdrawn, by 
order of Louis, to add to the forces which were 
surrounding his person at Versailles. Paris 
was thus left at the mercy of the mob. The 



1789.J The Mob at Versailles. 13o 

Terror and confusioTi. Attack on the Baatile. 

arsenals were ransacked, the powder maga- 
zines were broken open, pikes were forged, 
and in a day, as it were, all Paris was in arms 
Thousands of the noble and the wealthy fled in 
consternation from these scenes of ever-accumu- 
lating peril, and bands of ferocious men and 
women, from all the abodes of infamy, with the 
aspect and the energy of demons, ravaged the 
streets. 

When the morning of the 14th of March, 
1789, dawned upon the city, a scene of terror 
and confusion was witnessed which baffles all 
description. In the heart of Paris there was a 
prison of terrible celebrity, in whose dark dun- 
geons many victims of oppression and crime had 
perished. The Bastile, in its gloomy strength 
of rock and iron, was the great instrument of 
terror with which the kings of France had, for 
centuries, held all restless spirits in subjection. 
Now, the whole population of Paris seemed to 
be rolling like an inundation toward this appa- 
rently impregnable fortress, resolved to batter 
down its execrated walls. " To the Bastile I 
to the Bastile !" was the cry which resounded 
along the banks of the Seine, and through every 
street of the insurgent metropolis ; and men, 
women, and boys poured on and poured on, an 



136 Maria Antoinette. [1789. 

The Eastile taken. Awful tumult, 

interminable host, choking every avenue with 
the agitated mass, armed with guns, knives, 
swords, pikes — dragging artillery bestrode by 
amazons, and filling the air with the clamor of 
Pandemonium. A conflict, fierce, short, bloody, 
ensued, and the exasperated multitude, many 
of them bleeding and maddened by wounds, 
clambered over the wails and rushed through 
the shattered gateways, and, with yells of tri- 
umph, became masters of the Bastile. The 
heads of its defenders were stuck upon poles 
upon the battlements, and the mob, intoxicated 
with the discovery of their resistless power, were 
beginning to inquire in what scenes of violence 
they should next engage. At midnight, cour- 
iers arrived at Versailles, informing the king 
and queen of the terrible insurrections triumph- 
ant in the capital, and that the royal troops 
every where, instead of being enthusiastic for 
the defense of the king, manifested the strong- 
est: disposition to fraternize with the populace. 
The tumult in Paris that night was awful. 
The rumor had entered every ear that the king 
was coming with forty thousand troops to take 
dreadful vengeance in the indiscriminate mas- 
sacre of the populace. It was a night of sleep- 
lessness and terroi— the carnival of all the mon- 



1789.] The Mob at Versailles. 137 

Energy of the queen. Resolution of the king. 

sters of crime who thronged that depraved me- 
tropolis. The streets were filled with intoxica- 
tion and blasphemy. No dwelling was secure 
from pillage. The streets were barricaded, 
pavements torn up, and the roofs of houses load- 
ed with the stones. 

All the energies of the queen were aroused 
for a visforous and heroic resistance. She strove 
to inspire the king with firmness and courage. 
He, however, thought only of concessions. He 
wished to win back the love of his people by 
favors. He declared openly that never should 
one drop of blood be shed at his command ; and, 
with the heroism of endurance, which he abund- 
antly possessed, and to prove that he had been 
grossly calumniated, he left Versailles in his 
carriage to go unprotected to Paris, into the 
midst of the infuriated populace. Just as he 
was entering his carriage on this dangerous ex- 
pedition, he received intelligence that a plot was 
formed to assassinate him on the way. This, 
however, did not in the slightest degree shake 
his resolution. The agony of the queen was irre- 
pressible as she bade him adieu, never expecting 
to see him again. 

The National Assembly, consisting of nearly 
twelve hundred persons, was then in session at 



138 Maria Antoinette. [1789. 

The king visits Paris. Strange cavalcade. 

Versailles, the great majority of them sympa- 
thizing with the populace, and yet were alarmed 
in view of the lawless violence which their own 
acts had awakened, and which was every where 
desolating the land. As, on the morning of the 
17th of July, the king entered his carriage with 
a slender retinue, and with no military protec- 
tion, to expose himself to the dangers of his tu- 
multuous capital, this whole body formed in pro- 
cession on foot and followed him. A countless 
throng of artisans and peasants flocked from all 
the streets of Versailles, and poured in from the 
surrounding country, armed with scythes and 
bludgeons, and joined the strange . cavalcade. 
Every moment the multitude increased, and the 
road, both before and behind the king, was so 
clogged with the accumulating mass, that seven 
hours passed before the king arrived at the gates 
of the city. During all this time he was ex- 
posed to every conceivable insult. As Louis 
was conducted to the Hotel de Ville, a hundred 
thousand armed men lined the way, and he 
passed along under the arch of their sabers 
crossed over his head. The cup of degradation 
he was compelled to drain to its dregs. 

While the king was absent from Versailles 
on this dreadful visit, silence and the deepest 



1789.] The Mob at Versailles. 139 

Painful suspense of the queen. Return of the king. 

gloom pervaded the palace. The queen, appre- 
hensive that the king would be either massacred 
or retained a prisoner in Paris, was overwhelm- 
ed with the anguish of suspense. She retired 
to her chamber, and, with continually gushing 
tears, prepared an appeal to the National As- 
sembly, commencing with these words : " Gen- 
tlemen, I come to place in your hands the wife 
and family of your sovereign. Do not suffer 
those who have been united in heaven to be 
put asunder on earth." Late in the evening 
the king returned, to the inexpressible joy of his 
household. But the narrative he gave of the 
day's adventure plunged them all again into the 
most profound grief. 

The visit of the king had no influence in di- 
minishing the horrors of the scenes now hourly 
enacted in the French capital. His friends 
were openly massacred in the streets, hung up 
at the lamp-posts, and roasted at slow fires, 
while their dying agonies were but the subjects 
of derision. The contagion of crime and cruelty 
spread to every other city in the empire. The 
higher nobility and the more wealthy citizens 
began very generally to abandon their homes, 
seeing no escape from these dangers but by pre- 
cipitate flight to foreign lands. Such was the 



140 Maria Antoinette. [1789. 

The banquet at Versailles. Enthusiastic loyalty 

state of affairs, when the officers of some of the 
regiments assembled at Versailles for the pro- 
tection of the king had a public banquet in the 
saloon of the opera.~^r' AH the rank and elegance 
which had ventured' yet to linger around the 
court graced the feast with their presence in 
the surrounding boxes. In the midst of their 
festivities, their chivalrous enthusiasm was ex- 
cited in behalf of the king and queen. They 
drank their health — they vowed to defend them 
even unto death. Wine had given fervor to 
their loyalty. The ladies showered upon them 
bouquets, waved their handkerchiefs, and tossed 
to them white cockades, the emblem of Bourbon 
power. And now the cry arose, loud, and long, 
and enthusiastic, for the king and queen to come 
and show themselves to their defenders. The 
door suddenly opened, and the king and queen 
appeared. Enthusiasm immediately rose al- 
most to phrensy. The hall resounded with ac- 
clamations, and the king, entirely unmanned by 
these expressions of attachment, burst into tears. 
The band struck up the pathetic air, "O Rich- 
ard ! O my king ! the world abandons you." 
There was no longer any bounds to the trans- 
port. The officers and the ladies mingled to- 
gether in a scene of indescribable enthusiasm. 



1789.) The Mob at Versailles. 141 

Newa of the banquet. Famine in Paris. 

The tidings of this banquet spread like wild- 
fire through Paris, magnified by the grossest 
exaggerations. It was universally believed that 
the officers had contemptuously trampled the 
tri-colored cockade, the adopted emblem of pop- 
ular power, under their feet; that they had 
sharpened their sabers, and sworn to extermi- 
nate the National Assembly and the people of 
Paris. All business was at a stand. No laborer 
was employed. The provisions in the city were 
nearly all consumed. No bake? dared to ap- 
pear with his cart, or farmer to send in his corn, 
for pillage was the order of the day. The ex- 
asperated and starving people hung a few bakers 
before their own ovens, but that did not make 
bread any more plenty. The populace of Paris 
were now starving, literally and truly starving. 
A gaunt and haggard woman seized a drum and 
strode through the streets, beating it violently, 
and mingling with its din her shrieks of '' Bread ! 
bread !" A few boys follow her — then a score 
of female furies — and then thousands of desper- 
ate men. The swelling inundation rolls from 
street to street ; the alarm bells are rung ; all 
Paris composes one mighty, resistless mob, mo- 
tiveless, aimless, but ripe for any deed of des- 
peration. The cry goes from mowth to mouth. 



142 Maria Antoinette. [1789. 

The mob marches to Versailles. Heroic reply of the queen 

"To Versailles! to Versailles!" Why, no one 
knows, only that the king and queen are there. 
Impetuously, as by a blind instinct, the monster 
mass moves on. La Fayette, at the head of 
the National Guard, knows not what to do, for 
all the troops under his command sympathize 
with the people, and will obey no orders to re- 
sist them. He therefore merely follows on with 
his thirty-five thousand troops to watch the is- 
sue of events. The king and queen are warned 
of the approaching danger, and Louis entreats 
Maria Antoinette to take the children in the 
carriages and flee to some distant place of safety. 
Others join most earnestly in the entreaty. 
" Nothing," replies the queen, '^ shall induce 
me, in such an extremity, to be separated from 
my husband. I know that they seek my life. 
But I am the daughter of Maria Theresa, and 
have learned not to fear death." 

From the windows of their ihansion the dis- 
orderly multitude were soon descried, in a 
dense and apparently interminable mass, pour- 
ing along through the broad avenues toward the 
palaces of Versailles. It was in the evening 
twilight of a dark and rainy day. Like ocean 
tides, the frantic mob rolled in from every direc- 
tion. Their shouts and revels swelled upon the 




'!^%miif 



1789.] The Mob at Versailles. 145 

Violence of the mob. The queen retires to rest 

nii?ht air. The rain besran to fall in torrents. 
They broke into the houses for shelter ; insulted 
maids and matrons ; tore down every thing com- 
bustible for their watch fires ; massacred a few 
of the body guard of the queen, and, with bac- 
chanalian songs, roasted their horses for food. 
And thus passed the hours of this long and 
dreary night, in hideous outrages for which one 
can hardly find a parallel in the annals of New 
Zealand cannibalism. The immense gardens 
of Versailles were filled with a tumultuous ocean 
of half-frantic men and women, tossed to and 
fro in the wildest and most reckless excitement. 
Toward morning, the queen, worn out with 
excitement and sleeplessness, having received 
from La Fayette the assurance that he had so 
posted the guard that she need be in no appre- 
hension of personal danger, had retired to her 
chamber for rest. The kinsj had also retired to 
his apartment, which was connected wdth that 
of the queen by a hall, through which they 
could mutually pass. Two faithful soldiers 
were stationed at the door of the queen's cham- 
ber for her defense. Hardly had the queen 
placed her head upon her pillow before she 
heard a dreadful clamor upon the stairs — the 
discharge of fire-arms, the clashing of swords, 

K 



146 Maria Antoinette. [1789. 

Peril of the queen. Her narrow escape. 

and the shouts of the mob rushing upon her 
door. The faithful guard, bleeding beneath the 
blows of the assailants, had only time to cry 
to the queen, '' Fly ! fly for your life !" when 
they were stricken. down. The queen sprang 
from her bed, rushed to the door leading to the 
king's apartments, when, to her dismay, she 
found that it was locked, and that the key was 
upon the other side. With the energy of de- 
spair, she knocked and called for help. Fortu- 
nately, some one rushed to her rescue from the 
king's chamber and opened the door. The 
queen had just time to slip through and again 
turn the key, when the whole raging mob, with 
oaths and imprecations, burst into the room, and 
pierced her bed through and through with their 
sabers and bayonets. Happy would it have 
been for Maria if in that short agony she might 
have died. But she was reserved by a myste- 
rious Providence for more prolonged tortures and 
for a more dreadful doom. 

A few of the National Guard, faithful to the 
king, rallied around the royal family, and La 
Fayette soon appeared, and was barely able to 
protect the king and queen from massacre. He 
had no power to effectually resist the tempest 
of human passion which was raging, but was 



1789.] The Mob at VersailhIs. 147 

The mob in the palace. Heroic conduct of the queen. 

swept along by its violence. Nearly all of the 
interior of the palace was ransacked and defiled 
by the mob. The bloody heads of the massa- 
cred guards, stuck upon pikes, were raised up 
to the windows of the king, to insult and to ter- 
rify the royal family with these hideous trophies 
of the triumph of their foes. 

At length the morning succeeding this dread- 
ful night dawned lurid and cheerless. It was 
the 8th of October, 1789. Dark clouds over- 
shadowed the sky, showers of mist were driven 
through the air, and the branches of the trees 
swayed to and fro before the driving storm. 
Pools of water filled the streets, and a countless 
multitude of drunken vagabonds, in a mass so 
dense as to be almost impervious, besieged the 
palace, having no definite plan or desire, only 
furious with the thou2:ht that now w^as the hour 
in which they could wreak vengeance upon 
aristocrats for ages of oppression. Muskets 
were continually discharged by the more des- 
perate, and bullets passed through the windows 
of the palace. Maria Antoinette, in these try- 
ing scenes, indeed appeared queenly. Her con- 
duct was heroic in the extreme. Her soul was 
nerved to the very highest acts of fearlessness 
and magnanimity. Seeing the mob in tlic court- 



148 Maria Antoinette. [1789. 

The queen appears on the balcony. Her composure. 

yard below ready to tear in pieces some of her 
faithful guard whom they had captured, regard- 
less of the shots which were whistling by her, 
she persisted in exposing herself at the open 
window to beg for their lives ; and when a 
friend, M. Luzerne, placed himself before her, 
that his body might be her shield from the bul- 
lets, she gently, but firmly, with her hand, press- 
ed him away, saying, " The king can npt afford 
to lose so faithful a servant as you are." 

At length the crowd began vigorously to shout, 
" The queen ! the queen !" demanding that she 
should appear upon the balcony. She immedi- 
ately came forth, with her children at her side, 
that, as a mother, she might appeal to their 
hearts. The sight moved the sympathies of 
the multitude ; and execrating, as they did, Ma- 
ria Antoinette, whom they had long been taught 
to hate, they could not have the heart, in cold 
blood, to massacre these innocent children. 
Thousands of voices simultaneously shouted, 
"Away with the children !" Maria, apparently 
without the tremor of a nerve, led back her 
children, and again appearing upon the balcony 
alone, folded her arms, and, raising her eyes to 
heaven, stood before them, a self-devoted victim. 
The heroism of the act changed for a moment 



1789.] The Mob at Versaille r?. 149 

The queen applauded. The royal family token to Piuia. 



hatred to admiration. Not a gun was fired ; 
there was a moment of silence, and then one 
spontaneous burst of applause rose apparently 
from every lip, and shouts of "Vive la reine! 
vive la reine !" pierced the skies. 

And now the universal cry ascends, " To 
Paris I to Paris !" La Fayette, with the deep- 
est mortification, was compelled to inform the 
king that he had no force at his disposal suffi- 
cient to enable him to resist the demands of the 
mob. The king, seeing that he was entirely at 
the mercy of his foes, who were acting without 
leaders and without plan, as the caprice of each 
passing moment instigated, said, " You wish, 
my children, that I should accompany you to 
Paris. I can not go but on condition that I 
shall not be separated from my wife and family." 
To this proposal there was a tumultuous assent. 
At one o'clock, the king and queen, with their 
two children, entered the royal carriage to be 
escorted by the triumphant mob as captives to 
Paris. Behind them, in a long train, followed 
the carriages of the king's suite and servants. 
Then followed twenty-five carriages filled with 
the members of the National Assembly. After 
them came the thirty-five thousand troops of the 
National Guard ; and before, behind, and around 



150 Maria Antoinette. [17^9. 

An army of vagabonds. The royal family grossly insulted. 

them all, a hideous concouTse of vagabonds, 
male and female, in uncounted thousands, arm- 
ed with every conceivable weapon, yelling, blas- 
pheming, and crowding against the carriages 
so that they surged to and fro like ships in a 
storm. This motley multitude kept up an in- 
cessant discharge of fire-arms loaded with bul- 
lets, and the balls often struck the ornaments of 
the carriages, and the king and queen were oft- 
en almost suffocated with the smoke of powder. 
The two body guard, who had been massa- 
cred while so faithfully defending the queen at 
the door of her chamber, were beheaded, and, 
their gory heads affixed to pikes, were carried 
by the windows of the carriage, and pressed upon 
the view of the wretched captives with every 
species of insult and derision. La Fayette was 
powerless. He was borne along resistlessly by 
this whirlwind of human passions. None were 
so malignant, so ferocious, so merciless, as the 
degraded v/omen who mingled with the throng. 
They bestrode the cannon singing the most in- 
decent and insulting songs. ''We shall now 
have bread," they exclaimed; "for we have 
with us the baker, and the baker's wife, and 
the baker's boy." During seven long hours of 
agony were the royal family exposed to these 



1789.] The Mob at Versailles. 15t^ 

The royal family iu the Tuileries. The queen's self-sacrificing spirit. 

insults, before the unwieldy mass had urged its 
slow way to Paris. The darkness of night was 
settling down around the city as the royal cap- 
tives were led mto the Hotel de Ville. No one 
seemed then to know what to do, or why the 
king and queen had been brought from Ver- 
sailles. The mayor of the city received them 
there with the external mockery of respect and 
homage. He had them then conducted to the 
Tuileries, the gorgeous city palace of the kings 
of France, now the prison of the royal family. 
Soldiers were stationed at all the avenues to 
the palace, ostensibly to preserve the royal fam- 
ily from danger, but, in reality, to guard them 
from escape. 

A moment before the queen entered her car- 
riage for this march of humiliation, she hastily 
retired to her private apartment, and, bursting 
into tears, surrendered herself to the most un- 
controllable emotion. Then immediately, as if 
relieved and strengthened by this flood of tears, 
she summoned all her energies, and appeared, 
as she had ever appeared, the invincible sover- 
eign. Indeed, through all these dreadful scenes 
she never seemed to have a thought for herself. 
It w^as for her husband and her children alone 
that she wept and suffered. Through all the 



154 Maria Antoinette. [1789. 

Rioting and violence. The dauphin's question. 

long hours of the night succeeding this day of 
horror, Paris was one boiling caldron of tumult 
and passion. Rioting and violence filled all its 
streets, and the clamor of madness and inebri- 
ation drove sleep from every pillow. The ex- 
citement of the day had been too terrible to al- 
low either the king or the queen to attempt re- 
pose. The two children, in utter exhaustion, 
found a few hours of agitated slumber from the 
terror with which they had so long been ap- 
palled. But in the morning, when the dauphin 
awoke, being but six or eight years of age, hear- 
ing the report of musketry and the turmoil still 
resounding in the streets, he threw his arms 
around his mother's neck, and, as he clung 
trembling to her bosom, exclaimed, "O mother ! 
mother ! is to-day yesterday again ?" Soon aft- 
er, his father came into the room. The little 
prince, to whom sorrow had given a maturity 
above his years, contemplated his father for a 
moment with a pensive air, went up to him and 
said, " Dear father, why are your people, who 
formerly loved you so well, now, all of a sudden, 
so angry with you ? And what have you done 
to irritate them so much ?" 

The king thus replied. " I wished, my dear 
child, to render the people still happier than 



1789.] The Mob at Versailles. 157 

The king's explanation to his son. Flight of the nobility. 

they were. 1 wanted money to pay the ex- 
penses occasioned by wars. I asked the Par- 
liament for money, as my predecessors have 
always done. Magistrates composing the Pa 
liament opposed it, and said that the peop' 
alone had a right to consent to it. I assemb'*^d 
the principal inhabitants of every town, whetl .i 
distinguished by birth, fortune, or talents, at 
Versailles. That is what is called the States* 
General. When they were assembled, they re- 
quired concessions of me which I could not make, 
either with due respect for myself or with justice 
to you, who will be my successor. Wicked men, 
inducing the people to rise, have occasioned the 
excesses of the last few days. The people must 
not be^blamed for them." 

/<^hfle these terrific scenes were passing in 
Paris and in France, the majority of the nobility 
were rapidly emigrating to find refuge in other 
lands. Every night the horizon was illumined 
by the conflagration of their chateaux, burned 
down by mobs. Many of them were mercilessly 
tortured to death. Large numbers, however, 
gathering around them such treasures as could 
easily be carried away, escaped to Germany on 
the frontiers of France. Some fifteen hundred 
of these emigrants were at Coblentz, organizing 



158 Maria Antoinette. [1789. 

Inflammatory placards. The Duke of Orleans. 

themselves into a military band, seeking assist- 
ance from the Austrian monarchy, and threat- 
ening, with an overwhelming force of invasion, 
to recover their homes and their confiscated es- 
tates, and to rescue the royal family. The pop- 
ulace in Paris were continually agitated with 
the rumors of this gathering army at Coblentz. 
As Maria was an Austrian, she was accused of 
being in correspondence with the emigrants, and 
of striving to rouse the Austrian monarchy to 
make war upon France, and to deluge Paris 
with the blood of its citizens. Most inflam- 
matory placards were posted in the streets. 
Speeches full of rancor and falsehood were made 
to exasperate the populace. And when the fish- 
women wished to cast upon the queen some ep- 
ithet of peculiar bitterness, they called her '' The 
Austrian." 

It is confidently asserted that the mob was 
instigated to the march to Versailles by the 
emissaries of the Duke of Orleans, the father of 
Louis Philippe. The duke hoped that the royal 
family, terrified by the approach of the infuri- 
ated multitude, would enter their carriages and 
flee to join the emigrants at Coblentz. The 
throne would then be vacant, and the people 
would make the Duke of Orleans, who, to se- 



1789.] The Mob at Versailles. 159 

Tne Duke of Orlean's plans frustrated. Rumors of an invasion. 

cure this result, had become one of the most 
violent of the Democrats, their king. It was 
a deeply-laid plot and a very plausible enter- 
prise. But the king understood the plan, and 
refused thus to be driven from the throne of 
his fathers. He, however, entreated the queen 
to take the children and escape. She resolute- 
ly declared that no peril should induce her to 
forsake her husband, but that she would live 
or die by his side. During all the horrors of 
that dreadful night, when the palace at Ver- 
sailles was sacked, the duke, in disguise, with 
his adherents, was endeavoring to direct the 
fury of the storm for the accomplishment of 
this purpose. But his plans were entirely 
frustrated. The caprice seized the mob to 
carry the king to Paris. This the Duke of 
Orleans of all things dreaded ; but matters had 
now passed entirely beyond his control. Ru- 
mors of the approaching invasion were filling 
the kingdom with alarm. There was a large 
minority, consisting of the most intelligent and 
wealthy, who were in favor of the king, and 
who would eagerly join an army coming for 
his rescue. Should the king escape and head 
that armv. it would ffive the invaders a vast 
accession of moral strength, and the insurgent . 



160 Maria Antoinette. [1789 

The leaders of the populace. The queen urged to attend the theater. 

people feared a dreadful vengeance. Conse- 
quently, there were great apprehensions enter- 
tained that the king might escape. The lead- 
ers of the populace were not yet prepared to 
plunge him into prison or to load him with 
chains. In fact, they had no definite plan be- 
fore them. He was still their recognized king. 
They even pretended that he was not their cap- 
tive — that they had politely, affectionately invi- 
ted him, escorted him on a visit to his capital. 
They entreated the king and queen to show that 
they had no desire to escape, but were contented 
and happy, by entering into all the amusements 
of operas, and theaters, and balls. But in the 
mean time they doubled the guards around 
them, and drove away their faithful servants, 
to place others at their tables and in their 
chambers who should be their spies. 

But two days after these horrid outrages, in 
the midst of which the king and queen were 
dragged as captives to Paris, the city sent a 
deputation to request the queen to appear at 
the theater, and thus to prove, by participating 
in those gay festivities, that it was with pleas- 
ure that she resided in her capital. With much 
dignity the queen replied, "I should, with great 
pleasure, accede to the invitation of the people 



1789.J The Moh at Versailles. ' IGi 

Dignified reply of tbe queen. Her unpopularity increases. 

of Paris ; but time must be allowed me to soft- 
en the recollection of the distressing 'events 
which have recently occurred, and from which 
I have suffered so severely. Having come to 
Paris preceded by the heads of my faithful 
guards, who perished before the door of their 
sovereign, I can not think that' such an entry 
into the capital ought to be followed by rejoic- 
ings. But the happiness I have always fell in 
appearing in the midst of the inhabitants of 
Paris is not eflaced from my memory ; and I 
hope to enjoy that happiness again, so soon as 
T shall find myself able to do so." 

The queen was, however, increasingly the 
object of especial obloquy. She was accused 
of urging the king to bombard the city, and- to 
adopt other most vigorous measures of resist- 
ance. It was affirmed that she held continual 
correspondence with the emigrants at Coblentz, 
and was doing all in her power to rouse Austria 
to come to the rescue of the king. Maria would 
have been less than the noble woman she was 
if she had not done all this, and more, for the 
protection of her husband, her child, and her- 
self. She inherited her mother's superiority of 
mind and mental energy. Had Louis possessed 
her spirit, he might have perished more heroic- 

L 



162 Maria Antoinette. [1789. 

The queen's vigorous action. Ultimate cause of the popular fury. 

ally, but probably none the less surely. Maria 
did, unquestionably, do every thing in her power 
to rouse her husband to a more energetic and 
manly defense. Generations of kings, by licen- 
tiousness, luxury, and oppression ; by total dis- 
regard of the rights of the people, and by the 
haughty contempt of their sufferings and com- 
plaints, had kindled flames of implacable hatred 
against all kingly power. Circumstances, over 
which neither Louis nor Maria had any control, 
caused these flames to burst out with resistless 
fury around the throne of France, at the time 
in which they happened to be seated upon it. 
Though there never had been seated upon that 
throne more upright, benevolent, and conscien- 
tious monarchs, they were compelled to drain 
to the dregs the poisoned chalice which their 
ancestors had mingled. Perhaps this world pre- 
sents no more affecting illustration of that mys- 
terious principle of the divine government, by 
which the transgressions of the parents are 
visited upon the children. Louis XIV., as 
haughty and oppressive a monarch as ever trod 
an enslaved people into the dust, died peace- 
fully in his luxurious bed. His descendant, 
Louis XVI., as mild and benignant a sovereign 
as ever sat upon an earthly throne, received 



1789.] The Mob at Versailles. 163 

Transgressors visitnd in their children. 

upon his unresisting brow the doom from which 
his unprincipled ancestors had escaped. It is 
difficult for us, in the sympathy which is ex- 
cited for the comparatively innocent Maria An- 
toinette and Louis, to remember the ages of 
wrong and outrage by which the popular exas- 
peration had been raised to wreak itself in in- 
discriminating atrocities. There is but one so- 
lution to these mysteries: ''After death comes 
the judgment." 



164 Maria Antoinette. [1789. 

Condition of the royal family. Ignominiously insulted. 



Chapter VI. 
The Palace a Prison. 

THE king and queen now found themselves 
in the gorgeous apartments of the Tuileries, 
surrounded with all the mockery of external 
homage, but incessantly exposed to the most 
ignominious insults, and guarded with sleepless 
vigilance from the possibility of escape. The 
name of the queen was the watchword of popu- 
lar execration and rage. In the pride of her 
lofty spirit, she spurned all apologies, explana- 
tions, or attempts at conciliation. Inclosing 
herself in the recesses of her palace, she heard 
with terror and resentment, but with an un- 
yielding soul, the daily acts of violence perpe- 
trated against royalty and all of its friends. All 
her trusty servants were removed, and spies in 
their stead occupied her parlors and her cham- 
bers. Trembling far more for her husband and 
her children than for herself, every noise in the 
streets aroused her apprehensions of a new in- 
surrection. And thus, for nearly two years of 
melancholy days and sorrowful nights, the very 



1789.J The Palace a Prison. 165 

The royal family surrounded by spies. The queen refuses to escape. 

nobleness of her nature, glowing with heroic love, 
magnified her anguish. The terror of the times 
had driven nearly all the nobility from the realm. 
The court was forsaken, or attended only by 
the detested few who were forced as ministers 
upon the royal family by the implacable popu- 
lace. Every word and every action of Maria 
Antoinette were Avatched, and reported by the 
spies who surrounded her in the guise of serv- 
ants. To obtain a private interview with any 
of her few remaining friends, or even with her 
husband, it was necessary to avail herself of 
private stair-cases, and dark corridors, and the 
disguise of night. The queen regretted ex- 
tremely that the nobles, and others friendly to 
royalty, should, in these hours of gathering dan- 
ger, have fled from France. When urged to 
fly herself from the dangers darkening around 
her, she resolutely refused, declaring that she 
would never leave her husband and children, 
but that she would live or die with them. The 
queen,. convinced of the impolicy of emigration, 
did every thing in her power to induce the em- 
io^rants to return. Ursjent letters were sent to 
them, to one of which the queen added the fol- 
lowing postscript with her own hand: " If you 
love vour king, your religion, your government. 



166 Maria Antoinette. [1789. 

Excuse for the emigrants. Their plans. 

and your country, return ! return ! return ! 
Maria Antoinette." The emigrants were se- 
verely censured by many for abandoning their 
king and country in such a crisis. But when 
all law was overthrown, and the raging mob 
swayed hither and thither at its will, and nobles 
were murdered on the high way or hung at 
lamp-posts in the street, and each night the hori- 
zon was illumined by the conflagration of their 
chateaux, a husband and father can hardly be 
severely censured for endeavoring to escape with 
his wife and children from such scenes of horror. 
A year of gloom now slowly passed away, 
almost every moment of which was embittered 
by disappointed hopes and gathering fears. The 
emigrants, who were assembled at Coblentz, on 
the frontiers of Germany, were organizing an 
army for the invasion of France and the resto- 
ration of the regal power. The people were very 
fearful that the king and queen might escape, 
and, joining the emigrants, add immeasurably 
to their moral strength. There were thousands 
in France, overawed by the terrors of the mob, 
who would most eagerly have rallied around the 
banners of such an invading army, headed by 
their own king. Louis, however, with his char- 
acteristic want of energy, was very unwilling to 



1789.] The Palace a Prison. 1G7 

Profligate women. Their talk with the queen. 

assume a hostile attitude toward his subjects, 
and still vainly hoped, by concessions and by 
the exhibition of a forgiving spirit, to reconcile 
his disaffected people. 

On the morning after the arrival of the king 
and queen at the Tuileries, an occurrence took 
place highly characteristic of the times. A 
crowd of profligate women, the same who be- 
strode the cannon the day before, insulting the 
queen with the most abusive language, collected 
under the queen's windows, upon the terrace of 
the palace. Maria, hearing their outcries, came 
to the window. A furious, termagant addressed 
her, telling her that she must dismiss all such 
courtiers as ruin kings, and that she must love 
the inhabitants of her good city. The queen re- 
plied, 

"I have loved them at Versailles, and will 
also love them at Paris." 

'' Yes ! yes !" answered another. '' But you 
wanted to besiege the city and have it bombard- 
ed. And you wanted to fly to the frontiers and 
join the emigrants." 

The queen mildly replied, " You have been 
told so, my friends, and have believed it, and 
that is the cause of the unhappiness of the peo- 
ple and of the best of kings." 



168 Maria Antoinette. [1789. 

Bravos of the women. Plan for the queen's escape. 

Another addressed her in German, to which 
the queen answered, ''I do not understand you. 
I have become so entirely French as even to 
have forgotten my mother tongue." 

At this they all clapped their hands, and 
shouted, " Bravo ! bravo !" They then asked 
for the ribbons and flowers out of her hat. Her 
majesty unfastened them herself, and then toss- 
ed them out of the window to the women. 
They were received with great eagerness, and 
divided among the party ; and for half an hour 
they kept up the incessant shout, " Maria An- 
toinette forever ! Our good queen forever !" 

In the course of a few weeks some of the de- 
voted friends of the queen had matured a plan 
by which her escape could be, without diffi- 
culty, effected. The queen, whose penetrating 
mind fully comprehended the peril of her situ- 
ation, replied, while expressing the deepest grat- 
itude to her friends for their kindness, " I will 
never leave either the king or my children. If 
I thought that I alone were obnoxious to pub- 
lic hatred, I would instantly offer my life as a 
sacrifice. But it is the throne which is aimed 
at. In abandoning the king, no other advant- 
age can be obtained than merely saving my 
life ; and I will never be guilty of such an act 
of cowardice." 



1789.] The Palace a Prison. 109 

Letter from the queen. Her employments. 

The following letter, which she wrote at this 
time to a friend, in reply to a letter of sympa- 
thy in reference to the outrage w4iich had torn 
her from Versailles, will enable one to form 
a judgment of her situation and state of mind 
at that time. " I shed tears of affection on 
reading your sympathizing letter. You talk 
of my courage ; it required much less to go 
through the dreadful crisis of that day than is 
now daily necessary to endure our situation, 
our ow^n griefs, those of our friends, and those 
of the persons who surround us. This is a 
heavy weight to sustain ; and but for the strong 
ties by which my heart is bound to my husband, 
my children, and my friends, I should wish to 
sink under it. But you bear me up. I ought 
to sacrifice such feelings to your friendship. 
But it is I who bring misfortune on you all, 
and all your troubles are on my account." 

The queen now lived for some time in much 
retirement. She employed the mornings in 
superintendmg the education of her son and 
daughter, both of whom received all their les- 
sons in her presence, and she endeavored to oc- 
cupy her mind, continually agitated as it w^as 
by ever-recurring scenes of outrage and of dan- 
ger, by working large pieces of tapestry. She 



170 Maria Antoinette. [1789. 

The king's tinv/illingness to flee. Execution of the Marquis of Favras. 

could not sufficiently recall her thoughts from 
the anxieties which continually engrossed them 
to engage in reading. The king was extremely 
unwilling to seek protection in flight, lest the 
throne should be declared vacant, and he should 
thus lose his crown. He was ever hoping that 
affairs would soon take such a turn that har- 
mony would be restored to his distracted king- 
dom. Maria Antoinette, however, who had a 
much more clear discernment of the true state 
of affairs, soon felt convinced that reconcilia- 
tion, unless effected by the arm of power, was 
hopeless, and she exerted all her influence to 
rouse the king to vigorous measures for escape. 
While firmly resolved never to abandon her 
husband and her family to save her own life, 
she still became very anxious that all should 
endeavor to escape together. 

About this time the Marquis of Favras was 
accused of having formed a plan for the rescue 
of the royal family. He was very hastily tried, 
the mob surrounding the tribunal and threaten- 
ing the judges v/ith instant death unless they 
should condemn him. He was sentenced to be 
hung,, and was executed, surrounded by the in- 
sults and execrations of the populace of Paris. 
The marquis left a wife and a little boy over- 



1789.] The Palace a Prison. 171 

Imprudence of some of the queen's friends. Ilcr embarrassment. 

whelmed with grief and in hopeless poverty. 
On the following Sunday morning, some ex- 
tremely injudicious friends of the queen, moved 
with sympathy for the desolated family, without 
consulting the queen upon the subject, presented 
the widow and the orphan in deepest mourning 
at court. The husband and father had fallen a 
sacrifice to his love for the queen and her family. 
The queen was extremely embarrassed. What 
course could she with safety pursue ? If she 
should yield to the dictates of her own heart, 
and give expression to her emotions of sympa- 
thy and gratitude, she would rouse to still 
gi'eater fury the indignation of the populace who 
were accusing her of the desire to escape, and 
who considered this desire as one of the greatest 
of crimes. Should she, on the other hand, sur- 
render herself to the dictates of prudence, and 
neglect openly to manifest any special interest 
in their behalf, how severely must she be cen- 
sured by the Loyalists for her ingratitude toward 
those who had been irretrievably ruined through 
their love for her. 

■ The queen was extremely pained by this un- 
expected and impolitic presentation ; for the 
fate of others, far dearer to her than her own 
life, were involved in her conduct. She with- 



172 Maria Antoinette. [1789. 

The queen weeps. Present to Madame Favras. 

drew from the painful scene to her private apart- 
ment, threw herself into a chair, and, weeping 
bitterly, said to an intimate friend, "We must 
perish I We are assailed by men who possess 
extraordinary talent, and who shrink from no 
crime. We are defended by those who have 
the kindest intentions, but who have no ade- 
quate idea of our situation. They have ex- 
posed me to the animosity of both parties by 
presenting to me the widow and the son of the 
Marquis of Favras. Were I free to act as my 
heart impels me, I should take the child of the 
man who has so nobly sacrificed himself for us, 
and adopt him as my own, and place him at the 
table between the king and myself. But, sur- 
rounded by the assassins who have destroyed 
his father, I did not dare even to cast my eyes 
upon him. The Royalists will blame me for 
not having appeared interested in this poor child. 
The Revolutionists will be enraged at the idea 
that his presentation should have been thought 
agreeable to me." The next day the queen 
sent, by a confidential friend, a purse of gold 
to Madame Favras, and assured her that she 
would ever watch, with the deepest interest, 
over her fortune and that of her son. 

Innumerable plans were now formed for the 



1789.] The Palace a Prison. 173 

The king continues inactive. Plan of Count d'laisdal. 

rescue of the royal family, and abandoned. The 
king could not he roused to energetic action. 
His passive courage was indomitable, but he 
could not be induced to act on.%he offensive, 
and, still hoping that by a spirit W conciliation 
he might win back the affections of his people, 
he was extremely reluctant to take any meas- 
ures by which he should be arrayed in hostility 
against them. Maria, on the contrary, knew 
that decisive action alone could be of any avail. 
One night, about ten o'clock, the king and 
queen were sitting in their private apartment 
of the Tuileries, endeavoring to beguile the mel- 
ancholy hours by a game of cards. The sister 
of the king, Madame Elizabeth, with a very 
pensive countenance, was kneeling upon a stool, 
by the side of the table, overlooking the game. 
A nobleman. Count d'Inisdal, devotedly attach- 
ed to the fortunes of the royal family, entered, 
and, in a low tone of voice, informed the king 
and queen that a plan was already matured to 
rescue them that very night ; that a section of 
the National Guard was gained over, that sets 
of fleet horses were placed in relays at suitable 
distances, that carriages were ready, and that 
now they only wanted the king's consent, and 
the scheme, at midnight, would be carried into 



174 Maria Antoinette. [1789. 

Indecision of the king. The queen's disappointments 

execution. The king listened to every word 
without the movement of a muscle of his coun- 
tenance, and, fixing his eyes upon the cards in 
his hand, as if paying no attention to what had 
been said, uttered not a syllable. For some 
time there was perfect silence. At last Maria 
Antoinette, who was extremely anxious that 
the king should avail himself of this opportuni- 
ty for escape, broke the embarrassing silence 
by saying, " Do you hear, sir, what is said to 
us ?" *' Yes," replied the king, calmly, " I hear," 
and he continued his game. Again there was 
a long silence. The queen, extremely anxious 
and impatient, for the hour of midnight was 
drawing near, again interrupted the silence by 
saying earnestly, "But, sir, some reply must 
be made to this communication." The king 
paused for a moment, and then, still looking 
upon the cards in his hand, said, '^The king 
can not consent to be carried offP Maria An- 
toinette was greatly disappointed at the want 
of decision and of magnanimity implied in this 
answer. She, however, said to the nobleman 
very eagerly, " Be careful and report this an- 
swer correctly, the king can not consent to be 
carried off." The king's answer was doubtless 
intended as a tacit consent, while he wished to 



1789.] The Palace a Prison. 175 

Disi^leasure of Count d'lnisdal. An alarm 

avoid the responsibility of participating in the 
design. The count, however^ was greatly dis- 
pleased at this answer, and said to his asso- 
ciates, " I understand it perfectly. He is will- 
ing that we should seize and carry him, as if by 
violence, but wishes, in case of failure, to throw 
all the blame upon those who are periling their 
lives to save him." The queen hoped earnestly 
that the enterprise would not be abandoned, and 
sat up till after midnight preparing her cases 
of valuables, and anxiously watching for the 
comins: of their deliverers. But the hours lin- 
gered away, and the morning dawned, and the 
palace was still their prison. The queen, short- 
ly after, remarking upon this indecision of the 
king, said, "We must seek safety in flight. 
Our peril increases every day. No one can tell 
to what extremities these disturbances will lead." 
La Fayette had informed the king, that, 
should he see any alarmmg movement among 
the disaffected, threatening the exposure of the 
royal family to new acts of violence, he would 
give them an intimation of their danger by the 
discharge of a few cannon from the battery upon 
the Pont Neuf. One night the report of guns 
from some casual discharge was heard, and the 
king, regarding it as the warning, in great 



176 Maria Antoinette. [1789. 

Attempts to assassinate the queen. Removal to St. Cloud. 

alarm flew to the apartments of the queen. 
She was not there. He passed hastily from 
room to room, and at last found her in the cham- 
ber of the dauphin, with her two children in her 
arms. _^i^ Madame," said the king to her, " I 
have been seeking you. I was very anxious 
about you." ^' You find me," replied the queen, 
pointing to her-children, '' at my station." 

Several unavailing attempts were made at 
this time to assassinate the queen. These dis- 
coveries, however, seemed to cause Maria no 
alarm, and she .could not be induced to adopt 
any precautions for her personal safety. Rarely 
did a day pass in which she did not encounter, 
in some form, ignominy or insult. As the heat 
of summer came on, the royal family removed 
to the palace of St. Cloud without any opposi- 
tion, though the National Guard followed them, 
professedly for their protection, but, in reality, 
to guard against their escape. Here another 
plan >vas formed for flight. The different mem- 
bers of the royal family, in disguise, were to 
meet in a wood four leagues from St. Cloud. 
Some friends of the royal family, who could be 
perfectly relied upon, were there to join them. 
A large carriage was to be in attendance, suffi- 
cient to conduct the whole family. The attend- 



1789.] The Palace a Prison. 177 

Another plan for flight. It is fibandoiied. 

ants at the palace would have no suspicion of 
their escape until nine o'cl^k in the evening, 
as the royal carriages were frequently out until 
that hour, and it would then take some time to 
send to Paris to call to2:ether the National As- 
sembly at midnight, and to send couriers to 
overtake the fugitives. Thus, with fleet horses 
and fresh relays, and having si^'or seven hours 
the start, the king and queen might hope to 
escape apprehension. The queen very high- 
ly approved of this plan, and was very anx- 
ious to have it carried into execution. But, 
for some unknown reason, the attempt was re- 
linquished. 

There were occasional exhibitions of strong 
individual attachment for the king and queen, 
which would, for a moment, create the illusion 
that a reaction had commenced in the public 
mind. One day the queen was sitting in her 
apartment at St. Cloud, in the deepest dejection 
of spirits, mechanically working upon some tap- 
estry to occupy the joyless and lingering hours. 
It was four o'clock in the afternoon. The pal- 
ace was deserted and silent. The very earth 
and sky seemed mourning in sympathy with 
the mourning queen. Suddenly, an unusual 
noise, as of many persons conversing in an 

JM 



178 Maria Antoinette. [1789. 

Exhibitions of attachment. Emotions of the queen. 

under tone, was heard beneath the window. 
The queen immediately rose and went to the 
window ; for every unaccustomed sound was, in 
such perilous times, an occasion of alarm. Be- 
low the balcony, she saw a group of some fifty 
persons, men and women, from the country, ap- 
parently anxious to catch a glimpse of her. 
They were evidently humble people, dressed in 
the costume of peasants. As soon as they saw 
the queen, they gave utterance to the most pas- 
sionate expressions of attachment and devotion. 
The queen, who had long been accustomed only 
to looks and words of defiance and insult, was 
entirely overpowered by these kind words, and 
could not refrain from bursting into tears. The 
sight of the weeping queen redoubled the affec- 
tionate emotions of the loyal group, and, with 
the utmost enthusiasm, they reiterated their 
assurances of love and their prayers for her 
safety. A lady of the queen's household, ap- 
prehensive that the scene might arrest the at- 
tention of the numerous spies who surrounded 
them, led her from the window. The affection- 
ate group, appreciating the prudence of the 
measure, with tears of sympathy expressed their 
assent, and with prayers, tears, and benedictions 
retired. Maria was deeply touched by these 



1789.] The Palace a Prison. 179 

The assassin in the garden. Itlidnight interviews. 

unwonted tones of kindness, and, throwing her- 
self into her chair, sobbed with uncontrollable 
emotion. It was long before she could regain 
her accustomed composure. 

JMany unsuccessful attempts were made at 
this time to assassinate the queen. A wretch 
by the name of Rotondo succeeded one day in 
scaling the walls of the garden, and hid himself 
in the shrubbery, intending to stab the queen 
as she passed in her usual solitary promenade. 
A shower prevented the queen from going into 
the garden, and thus her life was saved. And 
yet, though the assassin was discovered and ar- 
rested, the hostility of the public toward the 
royal family was such that he was shielded from 
punishment. 

The king and queen occasionally held private 
interviews at midnight, with chosen friends, se- 
cretly introduced to the palace, in the apart- 
ment of the queen. And there, in low tones of 
voice, and fearful of detection by the numerous 
spies which infested the palace, they would de- 
liberate upon their peril, and upon the innumer- 
able plans suggested for their extrication. Some 
recommended the resort to violence ; that the 
king should gather around him as many of his 
faithful subjects as possible, and settle the dif- 



180 Maria Antoinette. [1789. 

Deliberations of the king's friends. Taunting gift. 

fioulties by an immediate appeal to arms. Oth- 
ers urged further compromise, and the spirit of 
conciliation, hoping that the king might thus 
regain his lost popularity, and re-establish his 
tottering throne. Others urged, and Maria co- 
incided most cordially in this opinion, that it 
was necessary for the royal family to escape 
from Paris immediately, which was the focus 
of disaffection, and at a safe distance, surround- 
ed by their armed friends, to treat with their 
enemies and to compel them to reasonable terms. 
The indecision of the king, however, appeared 
to be an insuperable obstacle in the way of any 
decisive action. 

. One day a delegation appeared before the roy- 
al family from the conquerors of the Bastile^ 
with a new year's gift for the young dauphin. 
The present consisted of a box of dominoes cu- 
riously wrought from the stone of which that 
celebrated state prison was built. It was an 
ingenious plan to insult the royal family under 
the pretense of respect and affection, for on the 
lid of the box there was engraved the following 
sentiment : ^^ These stones, fro7n the ivalls which 
inclosed the innocent victiins of arbitrary poiu- 
er, have been converted into a toy, to be pre- 
sented to you, monsei^neur, as an homage of 



1789.] The Palace a Prison. 181 



The king's aunts leave France. They are arrested. 

the people'' s love, and to teach you the extent 
of their poiverP 

About this time, the two aunts of the king 
left France, ostensibly for the purpose of trav- 
eling, but, in reality, as an experiment, to see 
what opposition would be made to prevent mem- 
bers of the royal family from leaving the king- 
dom. As soon as their intention was known, 
it excited the greatest popular ferment. A vast 
crowd of men and women assembled at the pal- 
ace, to prevent, if possible, with lawless ^\o- 
lence, their departure. It was merely two el- 
derly ladies who wished to leave France, but 
the excitement pervaded even the army, and 
many of the soldiers joined the mob in the de- 
termination that they should not be permitted 
to depart. The traces of the carriages were cut, 
and the officers, who tried to protect the prin- 
cesses, were nearly murdered. The whole na- 
tion was agitated by the attempts of these two 
peaceful ladies to visit Rome. When at some 
distance from Paris, they were arrested, and the 
report of their arrest was sent to the National 
Assembly. The king found the excitement so 
sreat, that he wrote a letter to the Alsemblv, 
informinsr them that his aunts wished to leave 
France to visit other countries, and that, tliough 



182 Maria Antoinette. [1791 

Exciting debate. The ladies permitted to depart. 

he witnessed their separation from him and his 
family with much regret, he did not feel that 
he had any right to deprive them of the privilege 
which the humblest citizens enjoyed, of going 
whenever and wherever they pleased. The 
question of their detention was for a long time 
debated in the Assembly. "What right," said 
one, " have we to prohibit these ladies from trav- 
eling." " AVe have a law," another indignantly 
replied, "paramount to all others — the law 
which commands us to take care of the public 
safety." The debate was finally terminated 
by the caustic remark of a member who was 
ashamed of the protracted discussion. "Eu- 
rope," said he, "will be greatly astonished, no 
doubt, on hearing that the National Assembly 
s|>£nt four hours in deliberating upon the de- 
parture of two ladies who preferred hearing mass 
at^Rome rather than at Paris." The debate 
was thus terminated, and the ladies were per- 
mitted to depart. 

Early in the spring of 1791, the king and 
queen, who had been passing some time in Paris 
' at the Tuileries, wished to return to their coun- 
try seat at St. Cloud. Many members of the 
household had already gone there, and dinner 
was prepared for th'' voyal family at the palace 



H 



1791.] The Palace a Prison. 18.3 



The royal family start for St. Cloud. They are compelled to return 

for their reception. The carriages were at the 
door, and, as the king and queen were descend- 
ing, a great tumult in the yard arrested theii 
attention. They found that the guard, fearful 
that they might escape, had mutinied, and closed 
the door of the palace, declaring that they would 
not let them pass. Some of the personal friends 
of the king interposed in favor of the insulted 
captives, and endeavored to secure for them more 
respectful treatment. They were, however, 
seized by the infuriated soldiers, and narrowly 
escaped with their lives. The king and queen 
returned in humiliation to their apartments, 
feeling that their palace was indeed a prison. 
They, however, secretly did not regret the oc- 
currence, as it made more public the indignities 
to which they were exposed, and would aid in 
justifying before the community any attempts 
they might hereafter make to escape. 

The king had at length become thoroughly 
aroused to a sense of the desperate position of 
his affairs. But the royal family was watched 
so narrowly that it was now extremely difficult 
to make any preparations for departure ; and 
the king and queen, both having been brought 
up surrounded by the luxuries and restraints 
of a palace, knew so little of the world, and yet 



186 Maria Antoinette. [1791. 

Preparations for flight. Imprudence of the king and. queen. 

were so accustomed to have their own way, that 
they were entirely incapable of forming any ju- 
dicious plan for themselves, and, at the same 
time, they were quite unwilling to adopt the 
views of their more intelligent friends. They 
began, however, notwithstanding the most earn- 
est remonstrances, to make preparations for 
flight by providing themselves with every con- 
ceivable comfort for their exile. In vain did 
their friends assure them that they could pur- 
chase any thing they desired in any part of Eu- 
rope ; that such quantities of luggage would be 
only an encumbrance ; that it was dangerous, 
under the eyes of their vigilant enemies, to be 
making such extensive preparations. Neither 
the king nor queen would heed such monitions. 
The queen persisted in her resolution to send to 
Brussels, piece by piece, all the articles of a 
complete and extensive wardrobe for herself and 
her children, to be ready for them there upon 
their arrival. Madame Campan, the intimate 
friend and companion of the queen, was extreme- 
ly uneasy in view of this imprudence ; but, as 
she could not dissuade the queen, she went out 
again and again, in the evening and in disguise, 
to purchase the necessary articles and have them 
made up. She adopted the precaution of pur- 



1791.J The Palace a Prison. 157 

Garments for the children. The queen's dressing-case. 

chasing but few articles at any one shop, and 
of employing various seamstresses, lest suspi- 
cion should be excited. She had the garments 
made for the daughter of the queen, cut by the 
measure of another young lady who exactly re- 
sembled her in size. Gradually they thus filled 
one large trunk with clothing, which was sent 
to the dwelling of a lady, one of the friends of 
the queen, who was to convey it to Brussels. 

The queen had a very magnificent dressing- 
case, which cost twelve hundred dollars. This 
she also determined that she could not leave be- 
hind. It could not be taken from the palace, 
and sent away out of the country, without at- 
tracting attention, and leading at once to the 
conviction that the queen was to follow it. The 
queen, in her innocent simplicity of mankind, 
thought that the people could be blinded like 
children, by telling them that she intended to 
send it as a present to the Archduchess Chris- 
tina. However, by the most earnest remon- 
strances of her friends, she was induced only so 
far to change her plan as to consent that the 
charge d'affaires from Vienna should ask her 
at her toilet, and in the presence of all around 
her, to have just such a dressing-case made for 
the archduchess. This plan was carried into 



188 Maria Antoinette. [1791, 

The queen's diamonds and jewels. The faithful Leonard. 

execution, and the dressing-case was thus pub- 
licly made ; but, as it could not be finished in 
season, the queen sent her own dressing-case, 
saying that she would keep the new one her- 
self. It, however, did not deceive the spies 
who surrounded the queen. They noticed all 
these preparations, and communicated them to 
the authorities. She also very deliberately col- 
lected all her diamonds and jewels in her pri- 
vate boudoir, and beguiled the anxious hours 
in inclosing them in cotton and packing them 
away. These diamonds, carefully boxed, were 
placed in the hands of the queen's hair-dresser, 
a man in whom she could confide, to be carried 
by him to Brussels. He faithfully fulfilled his 
trust. But one of the women of the queen, 
whom she did not suspect of treachery, but who 
was a spy of the Assembly, entered her boudoir 
by false keys when the queen was absent, and 
reported all these proceedings. The hair-dress- 
er perished upon the scaffold for his fidelity. 
Let the name of Leonard be honored. The in- 
famous informer has gone to oblivion, and we 
will not aid even to embalm her name in con- 
tempt. 



1791.] The Flight. 189 

Increasing excitement. Inflammatory sijeech of Marat. 



t Chapter VII. 

The Flight. 

fTl HE ferment in the National Assembly was 
-^ steadily and strongly increasing. Every 
day brought new rumors of the preparation of 
the emigrants to invade France, aided by the 
armies of monarchical Europe, and to desolate 
the rebellious empire with fire and sword. Tid- 
ings were floating upon every breeze, grossly 
exaggerated, of the designs of the king and 
queen to escape, to join the avenging army, and 
to wreak a terrible vengeance upon their country. 
Furious speeches were made in the Assembly 
and in the streets, to rouse to madness the peo- 
ple, now destitute of work and of bread. " Cit- 
izens," ferociously exclaimed Marat, '' watch, 
with an eagle eye, that palace, the impenetra- 
ble den where plots are ripening against the 
people. There a perfidious queen lords it over 
a treacherous king, and rears the cubs of tyran- 
ny. Lawless priests there consecrate the arms 
which are to be bathed in the blood of the peo- 
ple. The genius of Austria is there, guided by 



190 Maria Antoinette. [1791. 

The king and queen resolve to fly. Eitbrt's of the king's brother. 

the Austrian Antoinette. The emigrants are 
there stimulated in their thirst for vengeance. 
Every night the nobility, with concealed dag- 
gers, steal into this den. They are knights of 
the poniard — assassins of the people. Why is 
not the property of emigrants confiscated — their 
houses burned — a price set upon their heads? 
The king is ready for flight. Watch ! watch ! 
a great blow is preparing — is ready to burst ; if 
you do not prevent it by a counter blow more 
sudden, more terrible, the people and liberty 
are annihilated." 

The king and queen, in the apartments where 
they were virtually imprisoned, read these an- 
gry and inflammatory appeals, and both now 
felt that no further time was to be lost in at- 
tempting to effect their escape. It was known 
that the brother of the king, subsequently 
Charles X., was going from court to court in 
Europe, soliciting aid for the rescue of the il- 
lustrious prisoners. It was known that the King 
of Austria, brother of Maria Antoinette, had 
promised to send an army of thirty-five thou- 
sand men to unite with the emigrants at Cob- 
lentz in their march upon Paris. Every mon- 
arch in Europe was alarmed, in view of the 
instability of his own throne, should the rebell- 



1791.] The Flight. 191 

Exasperation of the people. Intentiou of the king. 

ion of the people against the throne in France 
prove triumphant ; and Spain, Prussia, Sardinia, 
Naples, and Switzerland had guaranteed equal 
forces to assist in the re-establishment of the 
French monarchy. /It is not strange that the 
exasperation of the people should have been 
aroused, by the knowledge of these facts, be- 
yond all bounds. And their leaders were aware 
that they were engaged in a conflict in which 
defeat was inevitable death. 

The king had now resolved, if possible, to es- 
cape. He, however, declared that it never was 
his intention to join the emigrants and invade 
France with a foreign force. That, on the con- 
trary, he strongly disapproved of the measures 
adopted by the emigrants as calculated only to 
increase the excitement against the throne, and 
to peril his cause. He declared that it was only 
his wish to escape from the scenes of violence, 
insult, and danger to which he was exposed in 
Paris, and somewhere on the frontiers of his 
kingdom to surround himself by his loyal sub- 
jects, and there endeavor amicably to adjust 
the difficulties which desolated the empire. The 
character of the king renders it most probable 
that such was his intention, and such has been 
the verdict of posterity. 



192 Maria Antoinette. [1791. 

Deliberations of the emigrants. Dangers thicken. 

But there was another source of embarrass- 
ment which extremely troubled the royal fam- 
ily. The emigrants were deliberating upon the 
expediency of declaring the throne vacant by 
default of the king's liberty, and to nominate 
his brother M. le Comte d'Artois regent in his 
stead. The king greatly feared this moral for- 
feiture of the throne with which he was men- 
aced under the pretense of delivering him. He 
was justly apprehensive that the advance of an 
invading army, under the banners of his broth- 
er, would be the signal for the immediate de- 
struction of himself and family. Flight, con- 
sequently, had become his only refuge ; and 
flight was encompassed with the most fearful 
perils. Long and agonizing were the months 
of deliberation in which the king and queen 
saw these dangers hourly accumulating around 
them, while each day the vigilance of their en- 
emies were redoubled, and the chances of es- 
cape diminished. 

The following plan was at last adopted for 
the flight. The royal family were to leave 
Paris at midnight in disguise, in two carriages, 
for Montmedy, on the frontiers of France and 
Germany, about two hundred miles from Paris. 
This town was within the limits of France, so 



1791.] The Flight. 193 

The plan of flight. The Marquis de Bouill6. 

that the kmsf could not be said to have fled from 
his kingdom. The nearest road and the great 
pubUc thoroughfare led through the city of 
Rheims ; but, as the king had been crowned 
there, he feared that he might meet some one 
by whom he would be recognized, and he there- 
fore determined to take a more circuitous route, 
by by-roads and through small and unfrequented 
villages. Relays of horses were to be privately 
conveyed to all these villages, that the carriages 
might be drawn on with the greatest rapidity, 
and small detachments of soldiers were to be 
stationed at important posts, to resist any inter- 
ruption which might possibly be attempted by 
the peasantry. The king also had a large car- 
riage built privately, expressly for himself and 
his family, while certain necessary attendants 
were to follow in another. 

The Marquis de Bouille, who commanded a 
portion of the troops still faithful to the king, 
was the prime confidant and helper in this move- 
ment. He earnestly, but in vain, endeavored to 
induce the king to make some alterations in 
this plan. He entreated him, in the first place, 
not to excite suspicion by the use of a peculiar 
carriage constructed for his own use, but to 
make use of common carriages, such as were 

N 



194 Maria Antoinette. [1791. 

The king refuses to change his plan. The Marquis d'Agoult. 

daily seen traversing the roads. He also be- 
sought him to travel by the common high way, 
where relays of horses were at all times ready 
by night and by day. He represented to the 
king that, should he take the unfrequented 
route, it would be necessary to send relays of 
horses beforehand to all these little villages ; that 
so unusual an occurrence would attract atten- 
tion and provoke inquiry. He urged also upon 
the king that detachments of troops sent along 
these solitary roads would excite curiosity, and 
would inevitably create suspicion. The king, 
however, self-willed, refused to heed these re- 
monstrances, and persisted in his own plan. 
He, however, consented to take with him the 
Marquis d'Agoult, a man of great firmness and 
energy, to advise and assist in the unforeseen 
accidents which might embarrass the enterprise. 
He also reluctantly consented to ask the Em- 
peror of Austria to make a threatening move- 
ment toward the frontier, which would be an 
excuse for the movement through these villages 
of detachments of French troops. 

These arrangements made, the Marquis de 
Bouille sent a faithful officer to take an ac- 
curate survey of the road, and present a report 
to the king He then, under various pretexts. 



1791.] The Flight. 19o 

The Count de Ferisen. His noble character. 

removed to a distance those troops who were 
known to be disaffected to the royal cause, and 
endeavored to gather along the line of flight 
those in whose loyalty he thought he could con- 
fide. 

At the palace of the Tuileries, the secret of 
the contemplated flight had been confided only 
to the king, the queen, the Princess Elizabeth, 
.sister of the king, and two or three faithful at- 
tendants. The Count de Fersen, a most noble- 
spirited young gentleman from Sweden, most 
cheerfully periled his life in undertaking the 
exterior arrangements of this hazardous enter- 
prise. He had often been admitted, in the happy 
days of JMaria Antoinette, to the parties and 
fetes which lent wings to the hours at the Little 
Trianon, and chivalrous admiration of her per- 
son and character induced him to consecrate 
himself with the most passionate devotion to 
her cause. Three soldiers of the body-guard, 
Valorg, Monstrei, and Maldan, were also re- 
ceived into confidence, and unhesitatingly en- 
gaged in an enterprise in which success was ex- 
tremely problematical, and failure was certain 
death. They, disguised as servants, were to 
mount behind the carriages, and protect the 
royal family at all risks. 



196 Maria Antoinette. [1791. 

The king aud queen leave the palace. The queen loses her way. 

The night of the 20th of June at length ar- 
rived, and the hearts of the royal inmates of the 
Tuileries throbbed violently as the hour ap- 
proached which v^as to decide their destiny. At 
the hour of eleven, according to their custom, 
they took leave of those friends who were in the 
habit of paying their respects to them at that 
time, and dismissed their attendants as if to re- 
tire to their beds. As soon as they were alone, 
they hastily, and with trembling hands, dressed 
themselves in the disguises which had been pre- 
pared for their journey, and by different doors 
and at different times left the palace. It was 
the dark hour of midni2:ht. The lio^hts g'lim- 
mered feebly from the lamps, but still there was 
the bustle of crow^ds coming and going in those 
ever-busy streets. The queen, in her traveling 
dress, leaning upon the arm of one of the body- 
guard, and leading her little daughter Maria 
Theresa by the hand, passed out at a door in the 
rear of the palace, and hastened through the 
Place du Carrousel, and, losing her way, crossed 
the Seine by the Pont Royal, and wandered for 
some time through the darkest and most ob- 
scure streets before she found the two hackney- 
coaches which were waiting for them at the 
Quai des Theatins. The king left the palace 



1791.] The Flight. 197 

Departure from I'aris. Arrival at Bondy. 

in a similar manner, leading his son Louis by 
the hand. He also lost his way in the unfre- 
quented streets through which it was necessary 
for him to pass. The queen waited for half an 
hour in the most intense anxiety before the king 
arrived. At last, however, all were assembled, 
and, entering the hackney-coaches, the Count de 
Fersen, disguised as a coachman, leaped up on 
the box, and the wheels rattled over the pave- 
ments of the city as the royal family fled in 
this obscurity from their palace and their throne. 
The emotions excited in the bosoms of the il- 
lustrious fugitives were too intense, and the 
perils to which they were exposed too dreadful, 
to allow of any conversation. Grasping each 
other's hands, they sat in silence through the 
dark hours, with the gloomy remembrance of 
the past oppressing their spirits, and with the 
dread that the light of morning might introduce 
them to new disasters. A couple of hours of 
silence and gloom passed slowly away, and the 
coaches arrived at Bondy, the first stage from 
Paris. The gray dawn of the morning was just 
appearing in the east as they hurriedly changed 
their coaches for the laro^e travelin": carriasfe the 
king had ordered and another coach which there 
awaited them. Count de Fersen kissed the 



198 Maria Antoinette. [1791. 

Departure of the Count de Fersen. The passport. 

hands of the king and queen, and leaving them, 
according to previous arrangements, with their 
attendants, hastened the same night by another 
route to Brussels, in order to rejoin the royal 
family at a later period. 

The king's carriages now rolled rapidly on 
toward Chalons, an important town on their 
route. The queen had assumed the title and 
character of a German baroness returning to 
Frankfort with her two children ; the king was 
her valet de chambre, the Princess Elizabeth, 
the king's sister, was her waiting-maid. The 
passport was made out in the following manner : 

" Permit to pass Madame the Baroness of 
Korf, who is returning to Frankfort with her 
two children, her waiting-maid, her valet de 
chambre, and three domestics. 

"The Minister of Foreimi Affairs. 

o 

"MONTMORIN." 

At each post-house on the road relays of eight 
horses were waiting for the royal carriages. 
When the sun rose over the hills of France 
they were already many leagues from the cap- 
ital, and as the carriages rattled furiously along 
over hill and dale, the unwonted spectacle on 
that unfrequented road attracted much atten- 



L791.] The Flight. 11)9 

Appearance of the fugitives. An accident. 

Hon. At every little village where they stop- 
ped for an exchange of horses, the villagers gath- 
ered in groups around the carriages, admiring 
the imposing spectacle. The king was fully 
aware that the knowledge of his escape could 
not long be concealed from the authorities at 
Paris, and that all the resources of his foes 
would immediately be put into requisition to 
secure his arrest. They therefore pressed on 
with the utmost speed, that they might get as 
far as possible on their way before the pursuit 
should commence. The remarkable size and 
structure of the carriasfe which the kins^ had 
caused to be constructed, the number of horses 
drawing the carriages, the martial figures and 
commanding features of the three body-guard 
strangely contrasting with the livery of meni- 
als, the portly appearance and kingly counte- 
nance of Louis, who sat in a corner of the car- 
riage in the garb of a valet de chambre, all 
these circumstances conspired to excite suspi- 
cion and to magnify the dangers of the royal 
family. They, however, proceeded without in- 
terruption until they arrived at the little town 
of Montmirail, near Chalons, where, unfortu- 
nately, one of the carriages broke down, and 
they were detained an hour in making repairs. 



200 Maria Antoinette. [1791. 

The journey renewed. Emotions of the fugitives. 

It was an hour of intense anxiety, for they 
knew that every moment was increasing the 
probability of their capture. The carriage, how- 
ever, was repaired, and they started again on 
their flight. The sun shone brightly upon the 
fields, which were blooming in all the verdure of 
the opening summer. The seclusion of the re- 
gion through which they were passing was en- 
chanting to their eyes, weary of looking out upon 
the tumultuous mobs of Paris. The children, 
worn out by the exhaustion of a sleepless night, 
were peacefully slumbering in their parents' 
arms. Each revolution of the wheels was bring- 
ing them nearer to the frontier, where their faith- 
ful friend, M. de Bouille, was waiting, with hif* 
loyal troops, to receive them. A gleam of hope 
and joy now rose in their bosoms ; and, as they 
entered the town of Chalons, at half past three 
o'clock in the afternoon, smiles of joy lighted 
their countenances, and they began to congrat- 
ulate themselves that they were fast approach- 
ing the end of their dangers and their sufferings 
As the horses were changing, a group of idlers 
gathered around the carriages. The king, em- 
boldened by his distance from the capital, im- 
prudently looked out at the window of the car- 
riage. The post-master, who had been in Par- 



1791.] The Flight. 201 

yuspicions excited. Failure of the guard. 

is, instantly recognized the king. He, however, 
without the manifestation of the least surprise, 
aided in harnessing the horses, and ordered the 
postillion to drive on. He would not be an ac- 
complice in arresting the escape of the king. 
At the next relay, at Point Sommeville, quite a 
concourse gathered around the carriages, and 
the populace appeared uneasy and suspicious. 
They watched the travelers very narrowly, and 
were observed to be whispering with one anoth- 
er, and making ominous signs. No one, how- 
ever, ventured to make any movement to de- 
tain the carriages, and they proceeded on their 
way. A detachment of fifty hussars had been 
appointed to meet the king at this spot. They 
were there at the assigned moment. The break- 
ing down of the carriage, however, detained 
the king, and the hussars, observing the suspi- 
cions their presence was awaking, departed half 
an hour before the arrival of the carriasfes. Ha d 
the king arrived but one half hour sooner, the 
safety of the royal family would have been se- 
cured. The king was surprised and alarmed 
at not meeting the guard he had anticipated, 
and drove rapidly on to the next relay at Sainte 
Menehould. It was now half past seven o'clock 
of a beautiful summer's evening. The sun was 



202 Maria Antoinette. [1791. 

The king recognized. The dragoons and National Guard 

just sinking below the horizon, but the broad 
light still lingered upon the valleys and the hills. 
As they were changing the horses, the king, 
alarmed at not meeting the friends he expect- 
ed, put his head out of the window to see if any 
friend was there who could inform him why the 
detachments were detained. The son of the 
post-master instantly recognized the king by his 
resemblance to the imprint upon the coins in 
circulation. The report was immediately whis- 
pered about among the crowd, but there was 
not sufficient force, upon the spur of the mo- 
ment, to venture to detain the carriages. There 
was in the town a detachment of troops, friend- 
ly to the king, who would immediately have 
come to his rescue had the people attempted to 
arrest him. It was whispered among the dra- 
goons that the king was in the carriage, and 
the commandant immediately ordered the troops 
to mount their horses and follow to protect the 
royal family ; but the National Guard in the 
place, far more numerous, surrounded the bar- 
racks, closed the stables, and would not allow 
the soldiers to depart. The king, entirely un- 
conscious of these movements, was pursuing his 
course toward the next relay. Young Drouet, 
however, the post-master's son, had immediate- 



1791] The Flight. 203 

The post-master's son. He forms an ambush. 

ly, upon recognizing the king, saddled his fleet- 
est horse, and started at his utmost speed for 
the post-house at Varennes, that he might, be- 
fore the king's arrival, inform the municipal au- 
thorities of his suspicions, and collect a sufficient 
force to detain the travelers. One of the dra- 
goons, witnessing the precipitate departure of 
Drouet, and suspecting its cause, succeeded in 
mounting his horse, and pursued him, resolved 
to overtake him, and either detain him until 
the king had passed, or take his life. Drouet, 
however, perceiving that he was pursued, plung- 
ed into the wood, with every by-path of which 
he was familiar, and, in the darkness of the 
night, eluded his pursuer, and arrived at. Va- 
rennes, by a very much shorter route than the 
carriage road, nearly two hours before the king. 
He immediately communicated to a band of 
young men his suspicions, and they, emulous 
of the glory of arresting their sovereign, did not 
inform the authorities or arouse the populace, 
but, arming themselves, they formed an ambush 
to seize the persons of the travelers. It was 
half past seven o'clock of a cold, dark, and 
gloomy night, when the royal family, exhaust- 
ed with twenty-four hours of incessant anxie- 
ty and fatigue, arrived at the few strao^o^ling: 



204 Maria Antoinette. [1791. 

Arrival at Varennes. Alarm of the king. 

houses in the outskirts of the village of Va- 
rennes. They there confidently expected to 
find an escort and a relay of horses provided by 
their careful friend, M. Bouille. 

A small river passes through the little town 
of Varennes, dividing it into two portions, the 
upper and lower town, which villages are con- 
nected by a bridge crossing the stream. The 
king, by some misunderstanding, expected to 
find the relay upon the side of the river before 
crossing the bridge. But the fresh horses had 
been judiciously placed upon the other side of 
the river, so that the carriages, having crossed 
the bridge at full speed, could more easily, with 
a change of horses, hasten unmolested on their 
way. The king and queen, greatly alarmed at 
finding no horses, left the carriage, and wan- 
dered about in sad perplexity for half an hour, 
through the dark, silent, and deserted streets. 
In most painful anxiety, they returned to their 
carriages, and decided to cross the river, hoping 
to find the horses and their friends in the upper 
town. The bridge was a narrow stone struct- 
ure, with its entrance surmounted by a gloomy, 
massive arch, upon which was reared a tower, 
a relic of the feudal system, which had braved 
the storms of centuries. Here, under this dark 



1791.] The Flight. 205 

The royal family arrested. The alarm given. 

archway, Drouet and his companions had formed 
their ambuscade. The horses had hardly enter- 
ed the gloomy pass, when they were stopped 
by a cart which had been overturned, and five 
or six armed men, seizing their heads, ordered 
the travelers to alight and exhibit their pass- 
ports. The three body-guard seized their arms, 
and were ready to sacrifice their lives in the at- 
tempt to force the passage, but the king would 
allow no blood to be shed. The horses were 
turned round by the captors, and the carriages 
were escorted by Drouet and his comrades to 
the door of a grocer named Sausse, who was 
the humble mayor of this obscure town. At 
the same time, some of the party rushed to the 
church, mounted the belfry, and rang the alarm 
bell. The solemn booming of that midnight 
bell roused the affrisfhted inhabitants from their 
pillows, and soon the whole population was gath- 
ered around the carriages and about the door 
of the grocer's shop. It was in vain for the 
* king to deny his rank. His marked features 
betrayed him. Clamor and confusion filled the 
night air. Men, women, and children were 
running to and fro ; the populace were arming, 
to be prepared for any emergency ; and the roy- 
al family were worn out by sleeplessness and 



206 Maria Antoinette. [1791. 

The king discovers himself. His affecting appeal. 

toil. At last Louis made a bold appeal to the 
magnanimity of his foes. Taking the hand of 
Sausse, he said, 

" Yes ! I am your king, and in your hands I 
place my destiny, and that of my wife, my sis- 
ter, and my children. Our lives and the fate 
of the empire depend upon you. Permit me to 
continue my journey. I have no design of leav- 
ing the country. I am but going to the midst 
of a part of the army, and in a French town, to 
regain my real liberty, of which the factions at 
Paris deprive me. From thence I wish to make 
terms with the Assembly, who, like myself, are 
held in subjection through fear. I am not about 
to destroy, but to save and to secure the Consti- 
tution. If you detain me, I myself, France, 
all, are lost. I conjure you, as a father, as a 
man, as a citizen, leave the road free to us. In 
an hour we shall be saved, and with us France 
is saved. And, if you have any respect for one 
whom you profess to regard as your master, I 
command you, as your king, to permit us to 
depart." 

The appeal touched the heart of the grocer 
and the captors by whom the king was sur- 
rounded. Tears came into the eyes of many ; 
they hesitated ; the expression of their counte- 



s 



1791.] 


The 


F 1. 1 G H T. 


209 


An affecting scene. 






The royal gi'oup. 



nances showed that they would willingly, if 
they dared to consult the dictates of their own 
hearts, let the king pass on. A more affecting 
scene can hardly be imagined. It was mid- 
night. Torches and flambeaux were gleam- 
ing around. Men, women, and children were 
hurrying to and fro in the darkness. The 
alarm bell was pealing out its hurried sounds 
through the still air. A crowd of half-dressed 
peasants and artisans was rapidly accumulating 
about the inn. The king stood pleading with 
his subjects for liberty and life, far more moved 
by compassion for his wife and children than for 
himself. The children, weary and terrified, and 
roused suddenly from the sleep in which they 
had been lost in their parents' arms, gazed upon 
the strange scene with undefined dread, uncon- 
scious of the magnitude of their peril. The 
queen, seated upon a bale of goods in the shop, 
with her two children clinging to her side, plead, 
at times with the tears of despair, and again 
with all the majesty of her queenly nature, for 
pity or for justice. She hoped that a woman's 
heart throbbed beneath the bosom of the wife 
of the mayor, and made an appeal to her which 
one would think that, under the circumstances, 
no human heart could have resisted, 

O 



210 Maria Antoinette. [1791. 

Appeal of the queen. Telegraphic dispatch to Paris. 

^'You are a mother, madame," said the 
queen, in most imploring accents, " you are a 
wife ! the fate of a wife and mother is in your 
hands. Think what I must suffer for these chil- 
dren—for my husband. At one word from you 1 
shall owe them to you. The Queen of France 
will owe you more than her kingdom — more 
than life." 

" Madame," coldly replied the selfish and cal- 
culating woman, "I should be happy to help 
you if I could without danger. You are think- 
ing of your husband, I am thinking of mine. It 
is a wife's first duty to think of her own hus- 
band." 

The queen saw that all appeals to such a 
spirit must be in vain, and, taking her two chil- 
dren by the hand, with Madame Elizabeth as- 
cended the stairs which conducted from the 
grocer's shop to his rooms above, where she was 
shielded from the gaze of the crowd. She threw 
herself into a chair, and, overwhelmed with an- 
guish, burst into a flood of tears. The alarm 
bell continued to ring ; telegraphic dispatches 
were sent to Paris, communicating tidings of 
the arrest ; the neighboring villagers flocked into 
town ; the National Guard, composed of people 
opposed to the king, were rapidly assembled 



1791.] The Flight. 211 

Intense agony of the queen. Consternation in Paris. 

from all quarters, and the streets barricaded to 
prevent the possibility of any rescue by the sol- 
diers who advocated the royal cause. Thus 
the dreadful hours lingered away till the morn- 
ing dawned. The increasing crowd stimulated 
one another to ferocity and barbarity. Insults, 
oaths, and imprecations incessantly fell upon the 
ears of the captives. The queen probably en- 
dured as much of mental agony that night as 
the human mind is capable of enduring. The 
conflict of indignation, terror, and despair was 
so dreadful, that her hair, which the night pre- 
vious had been auburn, was in the morning 
white as snow. This extraordinary fact is 
well attested, and indicates an enormity of woe 
almost incomprehensible. 

There was no knowledge in Paris of the 
king's departure until seven o'clock in the 
morning, when the servants of the palace en- 
tered the apartments of the king and queen, 
and found the beds undisturbed and the rooms 
deserted. The alarm spread like wildfire 
through the palace and through the city. The 
alarm bells were rung, cannon were fired, and 
the cry resounded through the streets, " The 
king has fled ! the king has fled !" The terri- 
fied populace were expecting almost at the next 



212 Maria Antoinette. [1770. 

The palace forced. Insults to the royal family. 

moment to see him return with an avenging 
army to visit his rebellious subjects with the 
most terrible retribution. From all parts of 
the city, every lane, and street, and alley lead- 
ing to the Tuileries was thronged vnth the 
crowd, pouring on, like an inundation, toward 
the deserted palace. The doors were forced 
open, and the interior of the palace was instant- 
ly filled with the swarming multitudes. The 
mob from the streets polluted the sanctuaries 
of royalty with every species of vulgarity and 
obscenity. An amazon market-woman took 
possession of the queen's bed, and, spreading 
her cherries upon it, she took her seat upon the 
royal couch, exclaiming, " To-day it is the na- 
tion's turn to take their ease." One of the 
caps of the queen was placed in derision upon 
the head of a vile girl of the street. She ex- 
claimed that it would sully her forehead, and 
trampled it under her feet with contempt. Ev- 
ery conceivable insult was heaped upon the roy- 
al family. Placards, posted upon the walls, of- 
fered trivial rewards to any one who would bring 
back the noxious animals which had fled from 
the palace. The metropolis was agitated to its 
very center, and the most vigorous measures 
immediately adopted to arrest the king, if pos- 



1791.] The Flight. 213 

Measures to arrest the king. The tumult subsides. 

sible, before he should reach the friends who 
could afford him protection. This turmoil con- 
tinued for many hours, till the cry passed from 
mouth to mouth, and filled the streets, " He is 
arrested ! he is arrested !" 



214 Maria Antoinette. [1791. 



Despair of the king. Lovely character of Madanxe EUzabeth. 



Chapter VIII. 

The Return to Paris. 

jURING all the long hours of the night, 
while the king was detained in the grocer's 
shop at Varennes, he was, with anxiety inde- 
scribable, looking every moment for soldiers to 
appear, sent by M. Bouille for his rescue. But 
the National Guard, which was composed of 
those who were in favor of the Revolution, were 
soon assembled in such numbers as to render 
all idea of rescue hopeless. The sun rose upon 
Varennes but to show the king the utter des- 
peration of his condition, and he resigned him- 
self to despair. The streets were filled with an 
infuriated populace, and from every direction 
the people were flocking toward the focus of 
excitement. The children of the royal family, 
utterly exhausted, had fallen asleep. Madame 
Elizabeth, one of the most lovely and gentle of 
earthly beings, the sister of the king, who, 
through all these trials, and, indeed, through 
her whole life, manifested peculiarly the spirit 
of heaven, was, regardless of herself, earnestly 
praying for support for her brother and sister 



1791.] The Return to Paris. 215 

Return to Paris. Insults of the mob. 

Preparations were immediately made to for- 
ward the captives to Paris, lest the troops of 
M. Bouille, informed of their arrest, should come 
to their rescue. The king did every thing in 
his power to delay the departure, and one of 
the women of the queen feigned sudden and 
alarming illness at the moment all of the rest 
had been pressed into the carriages. But the 
impatience of the populace could not thus be 
restrained. With shouts and threats they com- 
pelled all into the carriages,, and the melancholy 
procession, escorted by three or four thousand 
of the National Guard, and followed by a nu- 
merous and ever-increasing concourse of the 
people, moved slowly toward Paris. Hour after 
liour dragged heavily along as the fugitives, 
drinking the very dregs of humiliation, were 
borne by their triumphant and exasperated foes 
back to the horrors from which they had fled. 
The road was lined on either side by countless 
thousands, insulting the agonized victims with 
derision, menaces, and the most ferocious ges- 
tures. Varennes is distant from Paris one 
hundred and eighty miles, and for this whole 
distance, by night and by day, with hardly an 
hour's delay for food or repose, the royal family 
were exposed to the keenest torture of which 



216 Maria Antoinette. [1791 

Massacre of M. Dampierre. Commissioners from Paris. 

the spiritual nature is in this world susceptible. 
Every revolution of the wheels but brought them 
into contact with fresh vociferations of calumny. 
The fury of the populace was so great that it 
was with difficulty that the guard could protect 
their captives from the most merciless massacre. 
Again and again there was a rush made at the 
carriages, and the mob was beaten back by the 
arms of the soldiers. One old gentleman, M. 
Dampierre, ever accustomed to venerate roy- 
alty, stood by the road side, affected by the pro- 
foundest grief in view of the melancholy spec- 
tacle. Uncovering his gray hairs, he bowed re- 
spectfully to his royal master, and ventured to 
give utterance to accents of sympathy. The 
infuriated populace fell upon him like tigers^, 
and tore him to pieces before the eyes of the 
king and queen. The wheels of the royal car- 
riage came very near running over his bleeding 
corpse. 

The procession was at length met by com- 
missioners sent from the Assembly to take 
charge of the king. Ashamed of the brutality 
of the people, Barnave and Petion, the two com- 
missioners, entered the royal carriage to share 
the danger of its inmates. They shielded the 
prisoners from death, but they could not shield 



1791.] The Return to Paris. 217 

Noble character of Barnave. Brutality of P6tion. 

them from insult and outrage. An ecclesiastic, 
venerable in person and in character, approached 
the carriages as they moved sadly along, and 
exhibited upon his features some traces of re- 
spect and sorrow for fallen royalty. It was a 
mortal offense. The brutal multitude would 
not endure a look even of sympathy for the de- 
scendant of a hundred kings. They rushed 
upon the defenseless clergyman, and would have 
killed him instantly had not Barnave most 
energetically interfered. " Frenchmen !" he 
shouted, from the carriage windows, "will you, 
a nation of brave men, become a people of mur- 
derers !" Barnave was a young man of much 
nobleness of character. His polished manners, 
and his sympathy for the wrecked and ruined 
family of the king, quite won their gratitude. 
Petion, on the contrary, was coarse and brutal. 
He was a Democrat in the worst sense of that 
abused word. He affected rude and rough fa- 
miliarity with the royal family, lounged con- 
temptuously upon the cushions, ate apples and 
melons, and threw the rind out of the window, 
careless whether or not he hit the king in the 
face. In all his remarks, he seemed to take a 
ferocious pleasure in wounding the feelings of 
his victims. 



218 Maria Antoinette. [1791. 

Approach to Paris. Appalling violence. 

As the cavalcade drew near to Paris, the 
crowds surrounding the carriages became still 
more dense, and the fury of the populace more 
unmeasured. The leaders of the National As- 
sembly were very desirous of protecting the roy- 
al family from the rage of the mob, and to shield 
the nation from the disgrace of murdering the 
king, the queen, and their children in the streets. 
It was feared that, when the prisoners should 
enter the thronged city, where the mob had so 
long held undisputed sway, it would be impos- 
sible to restrain the passions of the multitude, 
and that the pavements would be defaced with 
the blood of the victims. Placards were pasted 
upon the walls in every part of the city, '' Who- 
ever applauds the king shall be beaten; who- 
ever insults him shall be hung." As the car- 
riages approached the suburbs of the metropolis, 
the multitudes which thronged them became 
still more numerous and tumultuous, and the 
exhibitions of violence more appalling. All the 
dens of infamy in the city vomited their deni- 
zens to meet and deride, and, if possible, to de- 
' stroy the captured monarch. It was a day of 
' intense and suffocating heat. Ten persons were 
crowded into the royal carriage. Not a breath 
of air fanned the fevered cheeks of the sufferers. 



1791.) The Return to Paris. 219 

Suflerings of the royal family. Arrival at the Tuileries. 

The heat, reflected from the pavements and the 
bayonets, was ahnost insupportable. Clouds of 
dust enveloped them, and the sufferings of the 
cliildren were so great that the queen was act- 
ually apprehensive that they would die. The 
queen dropped the window of the carriage, and, 
in a voice of agony, implored some one to give 
her a cup of water for her fainting child. " See, 
gentlemen," she exclaimed, " in what a condi- 
tion my poor children are ! one of them is chok- 
ing." ^' We will yet choke them and you," was 
the brutal reply, " in another fashion." Several 
times the mob broke through the line which 
guarded the carriages, pushed aside the horses, 
and, mounting the steps, stretched their clenched 
fists in at the windows. The procession moved 
perseveringly alpng in the midst of the clashing 
of sabers, the clamor of the blood-thirsty multi- 
tude, and the cries of .men trampled under the 
hoofs of the horses. 

It was the 25th of June, 1791, at seven o'clock 
in the evening, when this dreadful procession, 
passing through the Barrier de I'Etoile, entered 
the city, and traversed the streets, through 
double files of soldiers, to the Tuileries. At 
length they arrived, half dead with exhaustion 
and despair, at the palace. The crowd was so 



220 Maria Antoinette. [1791 

Exertions of La Fayette. Roar of the multitude. 

immense that it was with the utmost difficulty 
that an entrance could be effected. At that 
moment, La Fayette, who had been adopting 
the most vigorous measures for the protection 
of the persons of the royal family, came to meet 
them. The moment Maria Antoinette saw 
him, forgetful of her own danger, and trembling 
for the body-guard who had periled their lives 
for her family, she exclaimed, " Monsieur La 
Fayette, save the body-guard." The king and 
queen alighted from the carriage. Some of the 
soldiers took the children, and carried them 
through the crowd into the palace. A member 
of the Assembly, who had been inimical to the 
king, came forward, and offered his arm to the 
queen for her protection. She looked him a 
moment in the face, and indignantly rejected 
the proffered aid of an enemy. Then, seeing a 
deputy who had been their friend, she eagerly 
accepted his arm, and ascended the steps of the 
palace. A prolonged roar, as of thunder, ascend- 
ed from the multitudinous throng which sur- 
rounded the palace when the king and queen 
had entered, and the doors of their prison were 
again closed against them. 

La Fayette was at the head of the National 
Guard. He was a strong advocate for the 



1791.] The Return to Paris. 223 

Spirit of the queen. Embarrassing position of La Fayette. 

rights of the people. At the same time, he 
wished to respect the rights of the king, and to 
sustain a constitutional monarchy. As soon as 
they had entered the palace, Maria Antoinette, 
with that indomitable spirit which ever charac- 
terized her, approached La Fayette, and offered 
to him the keys of her casket, as if he were her 
jailer. La Fayette, deeply wounded, refused 
to receive them. The queen indignantly, with 
her own hands, placed them in his hat. " Your 
majesty will have the goodness to take them 
back," said the marquis, ''for I certainly shall 
not touch them." 

The position of La Fayette at this time was 
about as embarrassing as it could possibly have 
been ; and he was virtually the jailer of the 
royal family, answerable with his life for their 
safe keeping. He had always been a firm friend 
of civil and religious liberty. He was very 
anxious to see France blessed with those free 
institutions and that recognition of popular 
rights which are the glory of America, but he 
also wished to protect the king and queen from 
outrage and insult; and a storm of popular 
fury had now risen which he knew not how to 
control or to guide. He, however, resolved to 
do all in his power to protect the royal family, 



224 Maria Antoinette. [1791. 

The palace rigorously guarded. The queen grossly insulted. 

and to watch the progress of events with the 
hope of establishing constitutional liberty and a 
constitutional throne over France. 

The palace was now guarded, by command 
of the Assembly, with a degree of rigor unknown 
before. The iron gates of the courts and gar- 
den of the Tuileries were kept locked. A list 
of the persons who were to be permitted to see 
the royal family was made out, and none others 
were allowed to enter. At every door sentinels 
were placed, and in every passage, and in the 
corridor which connected the chambers of the 
king and queen, armed men were stationed. 
The doors of the sleeping apartments of the king 
and queen were kept open night and day, and 
a guard was placed there to keep his eye ever 
upon the victims. No respect was paid to fe- 
male modesty, and the queen was compelled to 
retire to her bed under the watchful eye of an 
unfeelinar soldier. It seems impossible that a 
civilized people could have been guilty of such 
barbarism. But all sentiments of humanity 
appear to have fled from France. One of the 
queen's women, at night, would draw her own 
bed between that of the queen and the open 
door, that she might thus partially shield the 
person of her royal mistress. The king was so 



1791.] The Return to Paris. 225 

Despair of the king. Supremacy of the mob. 

utterly overwhelmed by the magnitude of the 
calamities in which he was now involved, that 
his mind, for a season, seemed to be prostrated 
and paralyzed by the blow. For ten days he 
did not exchange a single word with any mem- 
ber of his family, but moved sadly about in the 
apathy of despair, or sat in moody silence. At 
last the queen threw herself upon her knees be- 
fore him, and, presenting to him her children, 
besought him, for her sake and that of their little 
ones, to rouse his fortitude. "We may all per- 
ish," she said, " but let us, at least, perish like 
sovereigns, and not wait to be strangled unre- 
sistingly upon the very floor of our apartments." 
The long and dreary months of the autumn, 
the winter, and the spring thus passed away, with 
occasional gleams of hope visiting their minds, 
but with the storm of revolution, on the whole, 
growing continually more black and terrific. 
General anarchy rioted throughout France. 
Murders were daily committed with impunity. 
There was no law. The mob had all power in 
their hands. Neither the king nor queen could 
make their appearance any where without ex- 
posure to insult. Violent harangues in the 
Assembly and in the streets had at length rous- 
ed the populace to a new act of outrage. The 

P 



226 Maria AntoIxNette. [1792. 

A brutal assemblage. Ferocious inscriptiona. 

immediate cause was the refusal of the king to 
give his sanction to a bill for the persecution of 
the priests. It was the 20th of June, 1792. 
A tumultuous assemblage of all the miserable, 
degraded, and vicious, who thronged the gar- 
rets and the cellars of Paris, and who had been 
gathered from all lands by the lawlessness v/ith 
which crime could riot in the capital, were seen 
converging, as by a common instinct, toward 
the palace. They bore banners fearfully ex- 
pressive of their ferocity, and filled the air with 
the most savage outcries. Upon the end of a 
pike there was affixed a bleeding heart, with 
the inscription, " The heart of the aristocracy." 
Another bore a doll, suspended to a frame by 
the neck, with this inscription, '' To the gibbet 
with the Austrian." With the ferocity of 
wolves, they surrounded the palace in a mass 
impenetrable. The king and queen, as they 
looked from their windows upon the multitu- 
dinous gathering, swaying to and fro like the 
billows of the ocean in a storm, and with the 
clamor of human passions, more awful than the 
voice of many waters, rending the skies, in- 
stinctively clung to one another and to their 
children in their powerlessness. Madame Eliz- 
abeth, with her saint-like spirit and her heaven- 



1792.] The Return to Paris. 227 

Attack upou the paluce. The mob force an entrance. 

directed thoughts, was ever unmmdfulof her own 
personal danger m her devotion to her beloved 
brother. The king hoped that the soldiers who 
were stationed as a guard within the inclosures 
of the palace would be able to protect them from 
violence. The gates leading to the Place du 
Carrousel were soon shattered beneath the blows 
of axes, and the human torrent poured in with 
the resistlessness of a flood. The soldiers very 
deliberately shook the priming from their guns, 
as the emphatic expression to the mob that they 
had nothing to fear from them, and the artil- 
lerymen coolly directed their pieces against the 
palace. Axes and iron bars were immediately 
leveled at the doors, and they flew from their 
hinges ; and the drunken and infuriated rabble, 
with clubs, and pistols, and daggers, poured, 
an interminable throng, through the halls and 
apartments where kings, for ages, had reigned 
in inapproachable pomp and power. The serv- 
ants of the king, in terror, fled in every direc- 
tion. Still the crowd came rushing and roar- 
ing on, crashing the doors before them, till they 
approached the apartment in which the royal 
family was secluded. The king, who, though 
deficient in active energy, possessed passive fear- 
lessness in the most eminent degree, left his 



228 Maria Antoinette. [L792. 

Fearlessness of the king. The mob awed. 

wife, children, and sister clinging together, and 
entered the adjoining room to meet his assail- 
ants. Just as he entered the room, the door, 
which was bolted, fell with a crash, and the 
mob was before him. For a moment the wretch- 
es were held at bay by the calm dignity of the 
monarch, as, without the tremor of a nerve, he 
gazed steadily upon them. The crowd in the 
rear pressed on upon those in the advance, and 
three friends of the king had just time to inter- 
pose themselves between him and the mob, 
when the whole dense throng rushed in and 
filled the room. A drunken assassin, w^ith a 
sharp iron affixed to a long pole, aimed a thrust 
violently at the king's heart. One blow from 
an heroic citizen laid him prostrate on the floor, 
and he was trampled under the feet of the throng. 
Oaths and imprecations filled the room ; knives 
and sabers gleamed, and yet the majesty of roy- 
alty, for a few brief moments, repelled the fe- 
rocity of the assassins. A few officei's of the 
National Guard, roused by the peril of the king, 
succeeded in reaching him, and, crowding him 
into the embrasure of a window, placed them- 
selves as a shield before him. The king seem- 
ed only anxious to withdraw the attention of 
the mob from the room in which his family 



1/92.] The Return to Paris. 2*29 

Courage of Madame Elizabeth. Cries ot'tho mob. 

were clustered, where he saw his sister, Ma- 
dame Elizabeth, with extended arms and im- 
ploring looks, struggling to come and share his 
fate. "It is the queen !" was the cry, and a 
score of weapons were turned toward her. ' ' No ! 
no I" exclaimed others, "it is Madame Ehza- 
beth." Her gentle spirit, even in these degrad- 
ed hearts, had won admiration, and not a blow 
fell upon her. " Ah I" exclaimed Madame Eliz- 
abeth, " why do you undeceive them ? Gladly 
would I die in her place, if I might thus save 
the queen." By the surging of the crowd she 
was swept into the embrasure of another win- 
dow, where she was hemmed in without any 
possibility of extrication. By this time the 
crowds were like locusts, climbing up the bal- 
conies, and pouring in at the windows, and ev- 
ery foot of ground around the palace was filled 
with the excited thronof. Shouts of derision 
filled the air, while the mob without were in- 
cessantly crying, "Have you killed them yet? 
Throw us out their heads." 

Almost miraculously, the friends surround- 
ing the king succeeded in warding off the blows 
which were aimed at him. One of the mob 
thrust out to the king, upon the end of a pike, 
a red bonnet^ the badge of the Jacobins, and 



230 Maria Antoinette! [1792. 

The red bonnet. First glimpse of Napoleon. 

there was a general shout, "Let him put it on ! 
let him put it on ! It is a sign of patriotism. If 
he is a patriot he will wear it." The king, 
smiling, took the bonnet and put it upon his head. 
Instantly there rose a shout from the fickle mul- 
titude, ''Vive le roiV^ The mob had achieved 
its victory, and placed the badge of its power 
upon the brow of the humbled monarch. 

There was at that time standing in the court- 
yard of the palace a young man, with the blood 
boiling with indignation in his veins, in view 
of the atrocities of the mob. The ignominious 
spectacle of the red bonnet upon the head of 
the king, as he stood in the recess of the win- 
dow, seemed more than this young man could 
endure, and, turning upon his heel, he hastened 
away, exclaiming, " The wretches I the wretch- 
es I they ought to be mown down by grape- 
shot." This is the first glimpse the Revolution 
presents of Napoleon Bonaparte. 

But while the king was enduring their tor- 
tures in one apartment, the queen was suffering 
indignities and outrages equally atrocious in 
another. Maria Antoinette was, in the eyes of 
the populace, the personification of every thing 
to be hated. They believed her to be infamous 
as a wife ; proud, tyrannical, and treacherous : 



1792.J The Return to Paris. 2o1 

The queen's apartments invaded. Insulted by abandoned women. 

that, as an Austrian, she hated France ; that 
she was doing all in her power to induce foreign 
armies to invade the French empire with lire 
and sword ; and that she had instigated the king 
to attempt escape, that he might head the ar- 
mies. Maria, conscious of this hatred, was 
aware that her presence would only augment 
the tide of indignation swelling against the king, 
and she therefore remained in the hed-chamber 
with her children. But her sanctuary was in- 
stantly invaded. The door of her apartment 
had been, by some friend, closed and bolted. 
Its stout oaken panels were soon dashed in, 
and the door driven from its hins^es. A crowd 
of miserable women, abandoned to the lowest 
depths of degradation and vulgarity, rushed into 
the apartment, assailing her ears with the most 
obscene and loathsome epithets the language 
could afford. The queen stood in the recess of 
a window, with queenly pride curbing her mor- 
tal apprehension. A few friends had gathered 
around her, and placed a table before her as a 
partial protection. Her daughter, an exceed- 
ingly beautiful girl of fourteen years of age, with 
her lisfht brown hair floatinsf in rino^lets over her 
fair brow and shoulders, clung to her mother's 
bosom as if she thought not of herself, but would 



232 Maria Antoinette. [1792. 



The queen's children. The young girl. 

only, with her own body, shield her mother's 
heart from the dagger of the assassin. Her son, 
but seven years old, clung to his mother's hand, 
gazing with a bewildered look of terror upon 
the hideous spectacle. The vociferations of the 
mob were almost deafening. But the aspect of 
the group, so lovely and so helpless, seemed to 
disarm the hand of violence. Now and then, in 
the endless crowd defiling through the room, 
those in the advance pressed resistlessly on by 
those in the rear, some one more tender hearted 
would speak a word of sympathy. A young 
girl came crowded along, neatly dressed, and 
with a pleasing countenance. She, however, 
immediately began to revile the queen in the 
coarsest language of vituperation. 

" V/hy do you hate me so, my friend?" said 
the queen, kindly ; " have I ever done any thing 
to injure or to offend you?" 

"No! you have never injured me," was the 
reply, " but it is you who cause the misery of 
the nation." 

"Poor child!" rejoined the queen, "you have 
been told so, and have been deceived. Why 
should I make the people miserable ? I am the 
wife of the king — the mother of the dauphin ; 
and bv all the feelings of my heart, as a wife 



I7y2.j The Return to Paris. 233 

Meeting of the National Assembly. l"he kiiij^'s friends derided 

and mother, I am a Frenchwoman. I shall 
never see my own country again. I can only 
be happy or unhappy in France. I was happy 
when you loved me." 

The heart of the girl was touched. She burst 
into tears, and exclaimed, " Pardon me, good 
queen, I did not know you ; but now I see that 
I have indeed been deceived, and you are truly 
good." 

Hour after hour of humiliation and agony 
thus rolled away. The National Assembly met, 
and in vain the friends of the king urged its ac- 
tion to rescue the royal family from the insults 
and perils to which they were exposed. But 
these efforts were met by the majority only with 
derision. They hoped that the terrors of the 
mob would compel the king hereafter to give 
his assent to any law whatever which they 
might frame. At last the shades of night be- 
gan to add their gloom to this awful scene, and 
even the most bitter enemies of the king did 
not think it safe to leave forty thousand men, 
inflamed with intoxication and rage, to riot, 
through the hours of the night, in the parlors, 
halls, and chambers of the Tuileries. The pres- 
ident of the Assembly, at that late hour, crowded 
his way into the apartment where, for several 



"224 Maria Antoinette. [1792. 

The president of the Assenibly. The mob retires. 

hours, the king had been exposed to every con- 
ceivable indignity. The mysterious authority 
of law opened the way through the throng. 

^'I have only just learned," said the presi- 
dent, " the situation of your majesty." 

*' That is very astonishing," replied the king, 
indignantly, " for it is a long time that it has 
lasted." 

The president, mounted upon the shoulders 
of four grenadiers, addressed the mob and urged 
them to retire, and they, weary with the long 
hours of outrages, slowly sauntered through the 
halls and apartments of the palace, and at eight 
o'clock silence reigned, with the gloom of night, 
throughout the Tuileries. The moment the 
mob became perceptibly less, the king received 
his sister into his arms, and they hastened to 
the apartment of the queen. During all the 
horrors of this awful day, her heroic soul had 
never quailed ; but, now that the peril was 
over, she threw herself upon the bosom of her 
husband, and wept in all the bitterness of incon- 
solable grief. As the family were locked in each 
other's arms in silent gratitude for their preser- 
vation, the king accidentally beheld in a mirror 
the red bonnet, which he had forgotten to remove 
from his head. He turned red with mortifica- 



1792.] The Return to Paris. 235 

Deputies visit the royal family. Unfeeling remark. 

tion, and, casting upon the floor the badge of 
his degradation, turned to the queen, with his 
eyes filled with tears, and exclaimed, " Ah, ma- 
dame, why did I take you from your country, to 
associate you with the ignominy of such a day 
as this I" 

After the withdrawal of the mob, several of 
the deputies of the National Assembly were in 
the apartment with the royal family, and, as the 
queen recounted the horrors of the last five 
hours, one of them, though bitterly hostile to 
the royal family, coiild not refrain from tears. 
"You weep," said she to him, "at seeing the 
king and his family so cruelly treated by a peo- 
ple whom he always wished to make happy." 

" True, madame," unfeelingly replied the 
deputy, " I weep for the misfortunes of a beau- 
tiful and sensitive woman, the mother of a fam- 
ily. But do not mistake ; not one of my tears 
falls for either king or queen. I hate kings and 
queens. It is the only feeling they inspire me 
with. It is my religion." 

But time stops not. The hours of a dark 
and gloomy night, succeeding this terrible day, 
lingered slowly along, but no sleep visited the 
eyelids of the inmates of the Tuileries. Scowl- 
ins: guards still eyed them malignantly, and the 



236 Maria Antoinette. [1792. 

Hopeless condition of the royal family. Breast-plate for the king. 

royal family could not unbosom to one another 
their sorrows but in the presence of those who 
were hostile spies upon every word and action. 
Escape was now apparently hopeless. The 
events of the past day had taught them that 
they bad no protection against popular fury. 
And they were filled with the most gloomy fore- 
bodings of woes yet to come. 

These scenes occurred on the 20th of June, 
1792. On the 14th of July of the same year 
there was to be a magnificent fete in the Champ 
de Mars, as the anniversary of the independence 
of the nation. The king and queen were com- 
pelled to be present to grace the triumph of the 
people, and to give the royal oath. It was an- 
ticipated that there would be many attempts 
on that day to assassinate the king and queen. 
Some of the friends of the royal family urged 
that they should each wear a breast-plate which 
would guard against the first stroke of a dag- 
go:r, and thus give the king's friends time to de- 
fend him. A breast-plate was secretly made for 
the king. It consisted of fifteen folds of Italian 
taffeta, and was formed into an under waist- 
coat and a wide belt. Its impenetrability w^as 
tried, and it resisted all thrusts of the dagger, 
and several balls were turned aside by it. Ma- 



1792.] The Return to Paris. 237 

Daggor-proof cors-et for the queen. Fete in the Champ de Mais. 

dame Campan wore it for three days as an un- 
der petticoat before an opportunity could be 
found for the king to try it on unperceived. 
At length, one morning, in the queen's chamber, 
a moment's opportunity occurred, and he slip- 
ped it on, saying, at the same time, to Madame 
Campan, "It is to satisfy the queen that I sub- 
mit to this inconvenience. They will not as- 
sassinate me. Their scheme is changed. They 
will put me to death in another way." 

A dagger-proof corset had also been prepared 
for the queen without her knowledge. She, 
however, could not be persuaded to wear it. 
"If they assassinate me," she said, "it will be 
a most happy event. It will release me from 
the most sorrowful existence, and may save 
from a cruel death the rest of the family." The 
14th of July arrived. The king, queen, and 
dauphin were marched, like captives gracing 
an Oriental triumph, at the head of the pro- 
cession, from the palace to the Champ de Mars. 
With pensive features and saddened hearts 
they passed along through the single file of sol- 
diers, •who were barely able to keep at bay the 
raging mob, furious for their blood, and male- 
dictions fell heavily upon their ears from a 
thousand tongues. The fountain of tears was 



2^^S Maria Antoinette. [1792. 

The last appearance of the royal family in public. 

dry, and despair had nerved them with stoi- 
cism. They returned to the palace in the deep- 
est dejection, and never again appeared in the 
streets of Paris till they v^ere borne to theii 
execution. 



1792.] Imprisonment. 2o9 



Apprehension of poison. The queen daily insulted. 



Chapter IX. 
Imprisonment in the Temple. 

EVERY day now added to the insults and 
anguish the royal family were called to en- 
dure. They were under such apprehension of 
having their food poisoned, that all the articles 
placed upon the table by the attendants, pro- 
vided by the Assembly, were removed untouch- 
ed, and they ate and drank nothing but what 
was secretly provided by one of the ladies of the 
bed-chamber. One day the queen stood at her 
window, looking out sadly into the garden of 
the Tuileries, when a soldier, standing under 
the window, with his bayonet upon his gun, 
looked up to her and said, " I wish, Austrian 
woman, that I had your head upon my bayonet 
here, that I might pitch it over the wall to the 
dogs in the street." And this man was placed 
under her window ostensibly for her protection ! 
Whenever the queen made her appearance in 
the garden, she encountered insults often too 
outrageous to be related. An assassin, one 
night, with his sharpened dagger, endeavored to 



240 Maria Antoinette. [1792. 

An assassin in the queen's chamber. The allied army. 

penetratd her chamber. She was awoke by the 
noise of the struggle with the guard at the door. 
The assassin was arrested. ''What a life !" ex- 
claimed the queen. " Insults by day, and as- 
sassins by night ! But let him go. He came 
to murder me. Had he succeeded, the Jacobins 
w^ould have borne him to-morrow in triumph 
through the streets of Paris." 

The allied army, united with the emigrants, 
in a combined force of nearly one hundred and 
fifty thousand men, now entered the frontiers of 
France, to rescue, by military power, the royal 
family. They issued a proclamation, in which 
it was stated that " the allied sovereigns had 
taken up arms to stop the anarchy which pre- 
vailed in France — to give liberty to the king, 
and restore him to the legitimate authority of 
which he had been deprived." The proclama- 
tion assured the people of Paris that, if they did 
not immediately liberate the king and return 
to their allegiance, the city of Paris should be 
totally destroyed, and that the enemies of the 
king should forfeit their heads. This proclama- 
tion, with the invasion of the French territory 
by the allied army, fanned to the intensest fury 
the flames of passion already raging in all parts 
of the empire. Thousands of young men from 



i 792.] Imprison m e: n t. 24 1 

E'arties in France. 'I'iie Royalists, Girondista, and Jacobinfl. 

all the provinces thronged into the city, breath- 
ing vengeance against the royal family. In 
vain did the king declare his disapproval of these 
violent measures on the part of the allies. In 
vain did he assert his readiness to head the ar- 
mies of France to repel invasion. 

There were now three important parties in 
France struggling for power. The first was 
that of the king, and the nobles generally, wish- 
in": for the re-establishment of the monarchy. 
The second was that of the Girondists, wishing 
for the dethronement of the king and the estab- 
lishment of a republic, with the power in the 
hands of the most influential citizens in intelli- 
gence and wealth. The third was that of the 
ultra Democrats or Jacobins, who wished to 
raise the multitude from degradation, penury, 
and infamy, into power, by the destruction of 
the throne, and the subjection of the middhng 
classes, and the entire subversion of all the dis- 
tinctions of wealth and*rank. The approach of 
the allies united both of these latter classes 
against the throne. A motion was immediately 
introduced into the Assembly that the monar- 
chy . be entirely abolished, and a mob rioting 
through Paris threatened the deputies with 
death unless thev dethroned the kino;. But an 

Q 



242 Maria Antoinette. [1792. 

Consternation in Paris. The king's dethronement. 

army of one hundred and fifty thousand men 
were marching upon Paris, and the deputies 
feared a terrible retribution if this new insult 
were heaped upon their sovereign. No person 
can describe the confusion and consternation 
with which the metropolis of France was filled. 
The mob declared, on the 9th of August, that, 
unless the dethronement were that day pro- 
nounced, they would that night sack the palace, 
and bear the heads of the royal family through 
the streets upon their pikes. The Assembly, 
undecided, and trembling between the two op- 
posing perils, separated without the adoption of 
any resolve. All knew that a night of dreadful 
tumult and violence must ensue. Some hund- 
reds of gentlemen collected around the king 
and queen, resolved to perish with them. Sev- 
eral regiments of soldiers were placed in and 
around the palace to drive back the mob, but 
it was well known that the troops would more 
willingly fraternize with the multitude than op- 
pose them. The sun went down, and the street 
lamps feebly glimmered through the darkness 
of the night. The palace was filled with armed 
men. The gentlemen surrounding the king 
were all conscious of their utter inability to pro- 
tect him. They had come but to share the fate 



1792.] Imprisonment. 243 

Scene from the palace. Gathering of the mob. 

of their sovereign. The queen and the Princess 
Elizabeth ascended to an upper part of the pal- 
ace, and stepped from a low window into the 
dark shadow of a balcony to look out upon the 
tumultuous city. The sound, as of the gather- 
ing of a resistless storm, swept through all the 
streets, and rose loud and threatening above the 
usual roar of the vast metropolis. The solemn 
tones of the alarm bells, pealing through the 
night air, summoned all the desperadoes of 
France to their several places of rendezvous, to 
march upon the palace. The rumbling of ar- 
tillery wheels, and the frequent discharge of 
musketry, proclaimed the determination and 
the desperation of the intoxicated mob. In 
darkness and silence, the queen and her sister 
stood listening to these fearful sounds, and their 
hearts throbbed violently in view of the terrible 
scene through which they knew that they must 
pass. The queen, pale but tearless, and nerved 
to the utmost by queenly pride, descended to 
the rooms below. She walked into the chamber 
where her beautiful son was sleeping, gazed 
earnestly upon him for a moment, bent over 
him, and imprinted upon his cheek a mother's 
kiss — and yet without a tear. She entered the 
apartment of her daughter — lovely, surpassing- 



244 Maria Antoinette. [1792. 

The queen with her children. Brutal remarks of the troops, 

ly lovely in all the blooming beauty of fifteen. 
The princess, comprehending the peril of the 
hour, could not sleep. Maria pressed her child 
to her throbbing heart, and the pride of the 
queen was soon vanquished by the tenderness 
of the mother, as with convulsive energy she 
embraced her, and wept in anguish almost un- 
endurable. Shouts of unfeeling derision arose 
from the troops below, stationed for the protec- 
tion of the royal family, and their ears were as- 
sailed by remarks of the most brutal barbarity. 
Hour after hour of the night lingered along, the 
clamor without incessantly increasing, and the 
crowds surrounding the palace augmenting. 
The excitement within the palace was so awful 
that no words could give it utterance. The few 
hundred gentlemen who had come so heroically 
to share the fate of their sovereign were aware 
that no resistance could be made to the tens of 
thousands who were thirstinof for their blood. 

Midnight came. It was fraught with horror. 
The queen, in utter exhaustion, threw herself 
upon a sofa. At that moment a musket shot 
was fired in the court-yard. " There is the first 
shot," said the queen, with the calmness of de- 
spair, " but it will not be the last. Let us go 
and be with the king." At length, from the 



1792.] I.-\I1'R1 SONMENT. 245 

Rising of the suu. Disattcction of the troops. 

windows of their apartment, a few gleams of 
light began to redden the eastern sky. " Come," 
said the Princess Elizabeth, •' and see the rising 
sun." Maria went mournfully to the window, 
gazed long and steadfastly upon the rising lu- 
minary, feeling that, before that day's sun 
should go down, she and all whom she loved 
would be in another world. It was an awful 
spectacle which the light of day revealed. All 
the avenues to the palace were choked with in- 
toxicated thousands. The gardens, and the 
court-yard surrounding the palace, were filled 
with troops, placed there for the protection of 
the sovereign, but evidently sympathizing with 
the mob, with whom they exchanged badges and 
friendly greetings. The queen, apprehensive 
that the children might be massacred in their 
beds, had them dressed, and placed by the side 
of herself and the king. It was recommended 
to the king that he should go down into the 
court-yard, among the troops stationed there for 
his defense ; that his presence might possibly 
awaken sympathy and enthusiasm in his behalf. 
The king and queen, with their son and daugh- 
ter, and jMadame Elizabeth, went down with 
throbbins: hearts to visit the ranks of their de- 
fenders. They were received with derisive in- 



246 Maria Antoinette. [1792. 

Extremity of the royal family. Spirit of the queen. 

suits and hootings. Some of the gunners left 
their posts, and thrust their fists into the face 
of the king, insulting him with menaces the 
most brutal. They instantly returned to the 
palace, pallid with indignation and despair. 

Soon an officer came in and informed the 
king that all resistance was hopeless ; that six 
pieces of artillery were already pointed against 
the main door of the palace ; that a mob of 
countless thousands, well armed, and dragging 
with them twelve heavy cannon, were rapidly 
approaching the scene of conflict ; that the whole 
populace of Paris were up in arms against the 
king, and that no reliance whatever could be 
placed in the soldiers stationed for his defense. 
^' There is not," said he, " a single moment to 
lose. You will all inevitably and immediately 
perish, unless you hasten to the hall where the 
Assembly is in session, and place yourself un- 
der the protection of that body." The pride of 
the queen was intensely aroused in view of ap- 
pealing to the Assembly, their bitterest enemy, 
for succor, and she indignantly replied, " I would 
rather be nailed to the walls of the palace than 
leave it to take refuge in the Assembly." And 
the heroism of Maria Theresa instinctively in- 
spiring her bosom, she seized, from the belt of 



1792.] Imprisonment. 247 

The king's calmness. The mother aiid the queen. 

an officer, two pistols, and, presenting them to 
the king, exclaimed, " Now, sire, is the time 
to show yourself, and if we must perish, let us 
perish with glory." The king calmly received 
the pistols, and silently handed them back to 
the officer. 

" Madame," said the messenger, '' are you 
prepared to iake upon yourself the responsibility 
of the death of the king, of yourself, of your 
children, and of all who are here to defend you? 
All Paris is on the march. Time presses. In 
a few moments it will be too late." The queen 
cast a glance upon her daughter, and a mother's 
fears prevailed. The crimson blood mounted to 
her temples. Then, again, she was pale as a 
corpse. Then, rising from her seat, she said, 
" Let us go." It was seven o'clock in the 
morning. 

The king and queen, with their two children, 
Madame Elizabeth, and a few personal friends, 
descended the great stair-case of the Tuileries, 
to pass out through the bands of soldiers and 
the tumultuous mob to the hall of the Assem- 
bly. At the stair-case there was a large con- 
course of men and women, gesticulating wdth 
fury, who refused to permit the royal family to 
depart. The tumult was such that the mem- 



248 IMaria Antoinette. [1792. 

The royal family take refuge in the Assembly. The king's speech. 

bers of the royal family were separated from 
each other ; and thus they stood for a moment 
mingled with the crowd, listening to language 
of menace and insult, when a deputy assured 
the mob that an order of the Assembly had sum- 
moned the royal family to them. The rioters 
then gave way, and the mournful group passed 
out of the door into the garden. They forced 
their way along, surrounded by a few friends, 
through imprecations, insults, gleaming dag- 
gers, and dangers innumerable, until they ar- 
rived at the hall of the Assembly, which the 
king was with difficulty enabled to enter, in 
consequence of the immense concourse which 
crowded him, thirsting for his blood, and yet 
held back by an unseen hand. As the king en- 
tered the hall, he said, with dignity, to the pres- 
ident, "I have come here to save the nation 
from the commission of a great crime. I shall 
always consider myself, with my family, safe in 
your hands." The royal family sat down upon 
a bench. Mournful silence pervaded the hall. 
A more sorrowful, heart-rending sight mortal 
eyes have seldom seen. The father, the moth- 
er, the saint-like sister, the innocent and help- 
less children, had found but a momentary ref- 
uge from cannibals, who were roaring liko 



1 7 92.] I .M r R 1 s o .\ M c n t. 249 



The square box. I'he king's serenity. 

^volves around the hall, and battering at tlic 
doors to break in and slake their vengeance 
with blood. It was seriously apprehended that 
the mob would make a rush, and sprinkle the 
blood of the royal family upon the very floor of 
the sanctuary where they had sought a refuge. 
Behind the seat of the president there was a 
box about ten feet square, constituting a seat 
reserved for reporters, guarded by an iron rail- 
ing. Into this box the royal family were crowd- 
ed for safety. A few friends of the king gath- 
ered around the box. The heat of the day was 
almost insupportable. Not a breath of air could 
penetrate the closely-packed apartment ; and 
the heat, as of a furnace, glowed in the room. 
Scarcely had the royal family got into this frail 
retreat, when the noise without informed them 
that their friends were falling before the daggers 
of assassins, and the greatest alarm was felt lest 
the doors should be driven in by the merciless 
mob. In this awful hour, the king appeared 
as calm, serene, and unconcerned as if he were 
the spectator of a scene in which he had no in- 
terest. The countenance of the queen exhib- 
ited all the unvanquished firmness of her soul, 
as with flushed cheek and indignant eye she 
looked upon the drama of terror and confusion 



250 Maria Antoinette. [1792. 

The mob at the palace. Brutal massacre of the king's friends. 

which was passing. The young princess wept, 
and her cheeks were marked with the furrows 
which her tears, dried by the heat, had left. 
The young dauphin appeared as cool and self- 
possessed as his father. The rattling fire of ar- 
tillery, and the report of musketry at the palace, 
proclaimed to the royal family and the affrighted 
deputies the horrid conflict, or, rather, massacre 
which was raging there. Immediately after the 
king and queen had left the Tuileries, the mob 
broke in at every avenue. A few hundred 
Swiss soldiers left there remained faithful to 
the king. The conflict was short — the massa- 
cre awful. The infuriated multitude rushed 
through the halls and the apartments of the 
spacious palace, murdering, without mercy and 
without distinction of age or sex, all the friends 
of the king whom they encountered. The mu- 
tilated bodies were thrown out of the windows 
to the mob which filled the garden and the court. 
The wretched inmates of the palace fled, pur- 
sued in every direction. But concealment and 
escape were alike hopeless. Some poor crea- 
tures leaped from the windows and clambered 
up the marble monuments. The wretches re- 
frained from firing at them, lest they should in- 
jure the statuary, but pricked them with their 



1792.] I M P R I S N M E N T. 25 i 

The moh sack the palace. The dead bodies of the Royalists burned. 

bayonets till they compelled them to drop down, 
and then murdered them at their feet. A pack 
of wolves could not have been more merciless. 
The populace, now rioting in their resistless 
power, with no law and no authority to restrain 
them, gave loose rein to vengeance, and, having 
glutted themselves with blood, proceeded to sack 
the palace. Its magnificent furniture, and 
splendid mirrors, and costly paintings, were 
dashed to pieces and thrown from the windows, 
when the fragments were eagerly caught by 
those below and piled up for bonfires. Drunken 
wretches staggered through all the most private 
apartments, threw themselves, with blood-soak- 
ed boots, upon the bed of the queen, ransacked 
her drawers, made themselves merry over her 
notes, and letters, and the various articles of her 
toilet, and polluted the very air of the palace 
by their vulgar and obscene ribaldry. As night 
approached, huge fires were built, upon which 
the dead bodies of the massacred Royalists were 
thrown, and all were consumed. 

During all the long hours of that dreadful 
day, and until two o'clock the ensuing night, 
the royal family remained, almost without a 
change of posture, in the narrow seat which had 
served them for an asylum. Who can measure 



252 Maria Antoinette. [1792 

The king dethroned. The royal family removed to the Feuillants. 

the amount of their endurance during these 
fifteen hours of woe? An act was passed, du-' 
ring this time, in obedience to the demands of 
the mob, dethroning the king. The hour of 
midnight had now come and gone, and still the 
royal sufferers were in their comfortless impris- 
onment, half dead with excitement and exhaus- 
tion. The young dauphin had fallen asleep in 
his mother's arms. Madame Elizabeth and the 
princess, entirely unnerved, were sobbing with 
uncontrollable grief. The royal family were 
then transferred, for the remainder of the night, 
to some deserted and unfurnished rooms in the 
old monastery of the Feuillants. Some beds 
and mattresses were hastily collected, and a 
few coarse chairs for their accommodation. As 
soon as they had entered these cheerless rooms, 
and were alone, the king prostrated himself upon 
his knees, with his family clmging around him, 
and gave utterance to the prayer, " Thy trials, 
O God ! are dreadful. Give us couTage to bear 
them. We adore the hand which chastens, as 
that which has so often blessed us. Ha v e mercy 
on those who have died fighting in our defense." 
Utter exhaustion enabled the unhappy family 
to find a few hours of agitated sleep. The sun 
arose the ensuing morning with burning rays, 



1 792.] I .\i p R I s o .\ M i: \ T. 25^3 

Hitter suite rings of the royal familj'. Taken back to tlie Assembly. 

and, as they fell upon the eyelids of the queen, 
she looked wildly around her for a moment upon 
the cheerless scene, and then, with a shudder, 
exclaiming, "Oh! I hoped it was all a dream,'' 
buried her face again in her pillow. The attend- 
ants around her burst into tears. " You see, my 
unhappy friends," said Maria, " a woman even 
more unliappy than yourselves, for she has 
caused all your misfortunes." The queen wept 
bitterly as she was informed of the massacre of 
her friends the preceding day. Already the 
royal family felt the pressure of poverty. They 
were penniless, and had to borrow some gar- 
ments for the children. The king and queen 
could make no change in their disordered dress. 
At ten o'clock in the morning, a guard came 
and conducted the royal family agam to the As- 
sembly. Immediately the hall was surrounded 
by a riotous mob, clamoring for their blood. At 
one moment the outer doors were burst open, 
and the blood-thirsty wretches made a rush for 
the interior. The king, believing that their 
final hour had come, begged his friends to seek 
their own safety, and abandon him and his fam- 
ily to their fate. The day of agitation and ter- 
ror, however, passed away, and, as the gloom of 
night again darkened the city, the illustrious 



254 Maria Antoinette. [1792. 

The royal family consigned to the Temple. Advance of the allies. 

sufferers were reconveyed to the Feuillants. 
All their friends were driven from them, and 
guards were placed over them, who, by rudeness 
and insults, did what they could to add bitter- 
ness to their captivity. 

It was decided by the Assembly that they 
should all be removed to the prison of the Tem- 
ple. At three o'clock the next day two car- 
riages were brought to the door, and the royal 
family were conveyed through the thronged 
streets and by the most popular thoroughfares 
to the prison. The enemies of royalty appeared 
to court the ostentatious display of its degrada- 
tion. As the carriages were slowly dragged 
along, an immense concourse of spectators lined 
the way, and insults and derision were heaped 
upon them at every step. At last, after two 
hours, in which they were constrained to drain 
the cup of ignominy to its dregs, the carriages 
rolled under the gloomy arches of the Temple, 
and their prison doors were closed against them. 

In the mean time the allied army was advanc- 
ing with rapid strides toward the city. The 
most dreadful consternation reigned in the me- 
tropolis. The populace rose in its rage to mas- 
sacre all suspected of being in favor of royalty. 
The prisons were crowded with the victims of 



1792.] Imprisonment. 2'j5 



Inhuman maasacre. Description of the Temple, 

suspicion. The rage of tlie mol) would not wait 
for trial. The prison doors were burst open, 
and a general and awful massacre ensued. 
There was no mercy shown to the innocence 
of youth or to female helplessness. The streets 
of Paris were red with the blood of its purest 
citizens, and the spirit of murder, with unre- 
strained license, glutted its vengeance. In one 
awful day and night many thousands perished. 
The walls of rock and iron of the Temple alone 
protected the royal family from a similar fate. 
The Temple was a dismal fortress which 
stood in the heart of Paris, a gloomy memorial 
of past ages of violence and crime. It was sit- 
uated not far from the Bastile, and inclosed 
within its dilapidated yet massive walls a vast 
space of silence and desolation. In former ages 
cowled monks had moved with noiseless tread 
through its spacious corridors, and their matins 
and vespers had vibrated along the stone arch- 
es of this melancholy pile. But now weeds 
choked its court-yard, and no sounds were heard 
in its deserted apartments but the shrieking of 
the wind as it rushed through the grated win- 
dows and whistled around the angles of the 
towers. The shades of nis^ht were addinor to 
the gloom of this wretched abode as the cap- 



2oG Maria Antoinette. [1792. 

Tower of the Temple. Apartments of th.3 royal family. 

fives were led into its deserted and unfurnished 
cells. It was after midnight before the rooms 
for their imprisonment were assigned to them. 
It was a night of Egyptian darkness. Soldiers 
with drawn swords guarded them, as, by the 
light of a lantern, they picked their way through 
the rank weeds of the castle garden, and over 
piles of rubbish, to a stone tower, some thirty 
feet square and sixty feet high, to whose damp, 
cheerless, and dismal apartments they were con- 
signed. " Where are you conducting us?" in- 
quired a faithful servant who had followed the 
fortunes of his royal master. The officer re- 
plied, " Thy master has been used to gilded 
roofs, but now he will see how the assassins of 
the people are lodged." 

Madame Elizabeth was placed in a kind of 
kitchen, or wash-room, with a truckle bed in it, 
on the ground floor. The second floor of the 
Tower was assigned to the attendants of the 
household. One common wooden bedstead and 
a few old chairs were the only furniture of 
the room. The third floor was assigned to the 
king, and queen, and the two children. A foot- 
man had formerly slept in the room, and had 
left suspended upon the walls some coarse and 
vulgar prints. The king, immediately glancing 




Tj£E ToV/ER ok TliK Tempi.k. 



1792.] Imprisonment. 259 

Obscene pictures. Resources of the prison. 

at them, took them down and turned their faces 
to the wall, exclahning, '^ I would not have my 
daughter see such thmgs.*' The king and the 
children soon fell soundly asleep ; but no re- 
pose came to the agitated mind of Maria An- 
toinette. Her lofty and unbending spirit felt 
these indignities and atrocities too keenly. She 
spent the night in silent tears, and indulging in 
the most gloomy forebodings of the fate which 
yet awaited them. 

The morning sun arose, but to show still more 
clearly the dismal aspect of the prison. But 
lew rays could penetrate the narrow windows 
of the tower, and blinds of oaken plank were so 
constructed that the inmates could only look out 
upon the sky. A very humble breakfast was 
provided for them, and then they began to look 
about to see what resources their prison afforded 
to beguile the weary hours. A few books were 
found, such as an odd volume of Horace, and 
a few volumes of devotional treatises, which 
had long been slumbering, moth-eaten, in these 
deserted cells, where, in ages that were past, 
monks had performed their severe devotions. 
The king immediately systematized the hours, 
and sat down to the regular employment of 
teaching his children. The son and the daugli- 



260 Maria Antoinette. [1792. 

Employments of the royal family. Severe restriction?. 

ter, with minds prematurely developed by the 
agitations and excitements in the midst of which 
they had been cradled, clung to their parents 
with the most tender affection, and mitigated 
the horrors of their captivity by manifesting the 
most engaging sweetness of disposition, and by 
prosecuting their studies with untiring vigor. 
The queen and Madame Elizabeth employed 
themselves with their needles. They break- 
fasted at nine o'clock, and then devoted the fore- 
noon to reading and study. At one o'clock they 
were permitted to walk for an hour, for exercise, 
in the court-yard of the prison, which had long 
been consigned to the dominion of rubbish and 
weeds. But in these walks they were daily 
exposed to the most cruel insults from the guards 
that were stationed over them. At two o'clock 
they dined. During the long hours of the even- 
ii% the king read aloud. At night, the queen 
prepared the children for bed, and heard them 
repeat their prayers. Every day, however, 
more severe restrictions were imposed upon the 
captives. They were soon deprived of pens and 
paper ; and then scissors, knives, and even need- 
les were taken away, under the pretense that 
they might be the instruments of suicide. They 
were allowed no communication of any kind 



1792.] Imprisonment. 263 

Manner of" obuiining news. The Princess Lamballe. 

with their friends without, and were debarred 
from all acquaintance with any thing trans- 
piring in the world. In that gloomy tower of 
stone and iron they were buried. A faithful 
servant, however, adroitly opened communica- 
tion with a news boy, who, under the pretense 
of selling the daily papers, recounted under their 
prison windows, in as loud a voice as he could, 
the leading articles of the journals he had for 
sale. The servant listened at the window with 
the utmost care, and then privately communi- 
cated the information to the king and queen. 

The fate of the Princess Lamballe, who per- 
ished at this time, is highly illustrative of the 
horrors in the midst of which all the Royalists 
lived. This lovely woman, left a widow at 
eighteen, was attracted to the queen by her 
misfortunes, and became her most intimate and 
devoted friend. She lodged in an apartment 
adjoining to the queen's, that she might share 
all her perils. Occasionally the princess was 
absent to watch over and cheer an aged friend, 
the Duke de Penthievre, her father-in-law, who 
resided at the Chateau de Vernon. She had 
gone a short time before the 20th of June to 
visit the aged duke, and Maria Antoinette, who 
foresaw the terrible storm about to burst upon 



264 Maria Antoinette. [1792. 

Maria's letter to the Princess de Lamballe. She rejoins the queen 

them, wrote the following touching letter to her 
friend, urging her not to return to the sufferings 
and dangers of the Tuileries. The letter was 
found in the hair of the Princess de Lamballe 
after her assassination. 

" Do not leave Vernon, my dear Lamballe, 
before you are perfectly recovered. The good 
Duke de Penthievre would be sorry and dis- 
tressed, and we must all take care of his ad- 
vanced age and respect his virtues. I have so 
often told you to take heed of yourself, that, if 
you love me, you must think of yourself; we 
shall require all of our strength in the times in 
which we live. Oh ! do not return, or return 
as late as possible. Your heart would be too 
deeply wounded ; you would have too many 
tears to shed over my misfortunes — you, who 
loved me so tenderly. This race of tigers which 
infests the kingdom would cruelly enjoy itself 
if it knew all the sufferings we undergo. Adieu, 
my dear Lamballe; I am always thinking of 
you, and you know I never change." 

The princess, notwithstanding this advice, 
hastened to join her friend and to share her fate. 
She stood by the side of the queen during the 
sleeplessness of the night preceding the 20th 
of .June, and clung to her during all those long 



1792.] Imprisonment. 2G5 

The princess separated from the queen. She is thrown into prison. 

and terrific hours in which the mob filled her 
apartment with language of obscenity, menace, 
and rage. She accompanied the royal family 
to the Assembly, shared with them the cheer- 
less night in the old monastery of the Feuillants, 
and followed them to the gloomy prison of the 
Temple. The stern decree of the Assembly, de- 
priving the royal family of the presence of any 
of their friends, excluded the princess from the 
prison. She still, however, lived but to weep 
over the sorrows of those whom she so tenderly 
loved. 

She was soon arrested as a Loyalist, and plung- 
ed, like the vilest criminal, into the prison of 
La Force. For the crime of loving the king 
and queen she was summoned to appear before 
the Revolutionary tribunal. The officers found 
her lying upon her pallet in the prison, surround- 
ed by other wretched victims of lawless violence, 
scarcely able to raise her head from her pillow. 
She entreated them to leave her to die where 
she was. One of the officers leaned over her 
bed, and whispered to her that they were her 
friends, and that her life depended upon her en- 
tire compliance with their directions. She im- 
mediately arose and accompanied the guard 
down the prison stairs to the door. There two 



266 Maria Antoinette. [1792. 

Trial of the princess. She refuses to swear. 

brutal-looking wretches, covered with blood, 
stood waiting to receive her. As they grasped 
her arms, she fainted. It was long before she 
recovered. As soon as she revived she was led 
before the judges. " Swear," said one of them, 
'' that you love liberty and equality ; and swear 
that you hate all kings and queens." ''I am 
willing to swear the first," she replied, "but as 
to hatred of kings and queens, I can not swear 
it, for it is not in my heart." Another judge, 
moved with pity by her youth and innocence, 
bent over her and whispered, " Swear any thing, 
or you are lost." She still remained silent. 
" Well," said one, " you may go, but when you 
get into the street, shout Vive la nation .'" The 
court-yard was filled with assassins, who cut 
down, with pikes and bludgeons, the condemn- 
ed as they were led out from the court, and 
the mutilated and gory bodies of the slain were 
strewn over the pavement. Two soldiers took 
her by the arm to lead her out. As she passed 
from the door, the dreadful sight froze her heart 
with terror, and she exclaimed, forgetful of the 
peril, " O God ! how horrible !" One of the 
soldiers, by a friendly impulse, immediately cov- 
ered her mouth with his hand, that her excla- 
mations might not be heard. She was led into 



1792.] Imprisonment. 267 

Assassination of the princess. Brutality of the mcb. 

the street, filled with assassins thirstinsr for the 
blood of the Royalists, and had advanced but a 
few steps, when a journeyman barber, stagger- 
ing with intoxication and infuriated with car- 
nage, endeavored, in a kind of brutal jesting, to 
strike her cap from her head with his long pike. 
The blow fell upon her forehead, cutting a deep 
gash, and the blood gushed out over her face. 
The assassins around, deeming this the signal 
for their onset, fell upon her. A blow from a 
bludgeon laid her dead upon the pavement. 
One, seizing her by the hair, with a saber cut 
off her head. Others tore her garments from 
her graceful limbs, and, cutting her body into 
fragments, paraded the mutilated remains upon 
their pikes through the streets. The dissever- 
ed head they bore into an ale-house, and drank 
and danced around the ghastly trophy in horrid 
carousal. The rioting multitude then, in the 
phrensy of intoxication, swarmed through the 
streets to the Temple, to torture the king and 
queen with the dreadful spectacle. The king, 
hearing the shoutings and tumultuous laugh- 
ter of the mob, went to the window, and rec- 
ognized, in the gory head thrust up to him 
upon the point of a pike, the features of his 
much-loved friend. He immediatelv led the 



268 Maria Antoinette. [1792. 

Dreadful apprehensions. Increased severities. 

queen to another part of the room, that she 
might be shielded from the dreadful spectacle. 
Such were the flashes of terror which were 
ever gleaming through the bars of their win- 
dows. The horrors of each passing moment 
were magnified by the apprehension of still 
more dreadful evils to come. There was, how- 
ever, one consolation yet left them. They were 
permitted to cling together. Locked in each 
other's arms, they could bow in prayer, and by 
sympathy and love sustain their fainting hearts. 
It was soon, however, thought that these in- 
dulgences were too great for dethroned royalty 
to enjoy. But a few days of their captivity had 
passed away, when, at midnight, they were 
aroused by an unusual uproar, and a band of 
brutal soldiers came clattering into their room 
with lanterns, and, in the most harsh and in- 
sulting manner, commanded the immediate ex- 
pulsion of all the servants and attendants of 
the royal family. Expostulation and entreaty 
were alike unavailing. The captives were 
stripped of all their friends, and passed the re- 
mainder of the night in sleeplessness and in de- 
spair. With the light of the morning they en- 
deavored to nerve themselves to bear with pa- 
tience this new trial. The king performed the 



1792.] Imprisonment. 269 

The queen grossly insulted. The king separated from his faniily. 

part of a nurse in aiding to wash and dress the 
children. For the health of the children, they 
went into the court-yard of the prison before 
dinner for exorcise and the fresh air. A sol- 
dier, stationed there to guard them, came up 
deliberately to the queen, and amused his com- 
panions by puffing tobacco smoke from his pipe 
into her face. The parents read upon the walls 
the names of their children, described as '' whelps 
w^ho ought to be strangled." 

Six weeks of this almost unendurable agony 
passed away, when, one night, as the unhappy 
captives were clustered together, finding in their 
mutual and increasing affection a solace for all 
their woes, six municipal officers entered the 
tower, and read a decree ordering the entire 
separation of the king from the rest of his fam- 
ily. No language can express the consterna- 
tion of the sufferers in view of this cruel meas- 
ure. Without mercy, the officers immediately 
executed the barbarous command, by tearing 
the king from the embraces of his agonized wife 
and his grief-distracted children. The king, 
overwhelmed with anguish in view of the suffer- 
ings which his wife and children must enduro, 
most earnestly implored them not to separate 
bim from his family. They were inflexible, 



270 Maria Antoinette. [1792. 

Wretched state of the king. The queen's anguish at the separation. 

and, hardly allowing the royal family one mo- 
ment for their parting adieus, hm-ried the king 
away. It was the dark hour of a gloomy night. 
The few rays of light from the lanterns guided 
them through narrow passages, and over piles 
of rubbish to a distant angle of the huge and 
dilapidated fortress, where they thrust the king 
into an unfurnished cell, and, locking the door 
upon him, they left him with one tallow candle 
to make visible the gloom and the solitude. 
There was, in one corner, a miserable pallet, 
and heaps of moldering bricks and mortar were 
scattered over the damp floor. The king threw 
himself, in utter despair, upon this wretched bed, 
and counted, till the morning dawned, the steps 
of the sentinel pacing to and fro before his door. 
At length a small piece of bread and a bottle of 
water were brought him for his breakfast. 

The anguish of the queen in the endurance 
of this most cruel separation was apparently as 
deep as human nature could experience. Her 
woe amounted to delirium. Pale and haggard, 
she walked to and fro, beseeching her jailers 
that they would restore to her and to her chil- 
dren the husband and the father. Her pathetic 
entreaties touched even their hearts of stone. 
*' I do believe," said one of them, '' that these 



1792.] Imprisonment. 271 

The king sees his family occasionally. Condition of the captives. 

infernal women will make even me weep.'^ 
After some time, they consented that the king 
should occasionally be permitted to partake his 
meals with his family, a guard being always 
present to hear what they should say. Imme- 
diately after the meal, he was to be taken back 
to his solitary imprisonment. 

Such was the condition of the royal family 
during a period of about four months, varied by 
the capricious mercy or cruelty of the different 
persons who were placed as guards over them. 
Their clothes became soiled, threadbare, and 
tattered ; and they were deprived of all means 
of repairing their garments, lest they should 
convert needles and scissors into instruments 
of suicide. The king was not allowed the use 
of a razor to remove his beard ; and the luxury 
of a barber to perform that essential part of his 
toilet was an expense which his foes could not 
incur. It was the studied endeavor of those 
who now rode upon the crested yet perilous bil- 
lows of power, to degrade royalty to the lowest 
depths of debasement and contempt — that the 
beheading of the king and the queen might be 
regarded as merely the execution of a male and 
a female felon dragged from the loathsome dim- 
geons of crime. 



272 MarIxV Antoinette. [1792. 

Ominous preparations. Tlie king summoned before the Conventioa. 



Chapter X. 
Execution of the King. 

ON the 11th of December, 1792, just four 
months after the royal family had been 
consigned to the Temple, as the captives were 
taking their breakfast, a great noise of the roll- 
ing of drums, the neighing of horses, and the 
tramp of a numerous multitude was heard 
around the prison walls ; soon some one entered, 
and informed the king that these were the prep- 
arations which were making to escort him to 
his trial. The king knew perfectly well that 
this was the step which preceded his execution, 
and, as he thought of the awful situation of his 
family, he threw himself into his chair and 
buried his face in his hands, and for two hours 
remained in that attitude immovable. He was 
roused from his painful revery by the entrance 
of the officers to conduct him to the bar of his 
judges, from whom, he was aware he could ex- 
pect no mercy. *' I x^ilov^ you," said the king, 
"not in obedience to the orders of the Conven- 
tion, but because my enemies are the more pow- 
erful." He put on his brown great-coat and 



1792.] Execution of the King. 273 

The king before the Convention. Charges brought against him. 

hat, and, silently descending the stairs to the 
door of the tower, entered a carriage which was 
there awaiting him. As he had long been de- 
prived of his razors, his chin and cheeks were 
covered with masses of hair. His garments 
hung loosely around his emaciated frame, and 
all dignity of aspect was lost in the degraded 
condition to which designing cruelty had re- 
duced him. The captive monarch was escorted 
through the streets by regiments of cavalry, in- 
fantry, and artillery, every man furnished with 
fifteen rounds of ammunition to repel any at- 
tempts at a rescue. A countless throng of 
people lined the streets through which the illus- 
trious prisoner was conveyed. The multitude 
gazed upon the melancholy procession in pro- 
found silence. He soon stood before the bar of 
the Convention. ''Louis," said the president, 
''the French nation accuses you. You are 
about to hear the charges which are to be pre- 
ferred. Louis, be seated." The king listened 
with perfect tranquillity and self-possession to 
a long catalogue of accusations, in which his 
efforts to sustain the "iciJlling monarchy, and his 
exertions to protect himself and family from in- 
sults and death, were construed into crimes 
against the nation. 

8 



274 Maria Antoinette. [1792. 

The king begs for a morsel of bread. He is taken back to prison. 

The examination of the king was long, mi- 
nute, and was conducted by those who were im- 
patient for his biood. At its close, the king, 
perfectly exhausted by mental excitement and 
the want of refreshment, was led back into 
the waitinsf-room of the Convention. He was 
scarcely able to stand for faintness. He saw a 
soldier eating a piece of bread. He approached, 
and, in a whisper, begged him for a piece, and 
ate it. Here was the monarch of thirty millions 
of people, in the heart of his proud capital, and 
with ail his palaces around him, actually beg- 
ging bread of a poor soldier. The king was 
again placed in the carriage, and conveyed back 
to his prison in the Temple. As the cortege 
passed slowly by the palace of the Tuileries, the 
scene of all his former grandeur and happiness, 
the king gazed long and sadly on the majestic 
pile, so lost in thought that he heeded not, and 
apparently heard not the insulting cries which 
were resounding around him. As the king en- 
tered the Temple, he raised his eyes most wist- 
fully to the queen's apartment, but the windows 
were so barred that no glances could be inter- 
changed. The king was conducted to his apart- 
ment, and was informed that he, could no longer 
be permitted to hold any communication what- 



1793.] Execution of the King.' 275 

Advance of the allies. Clamor for the king's life. 

ever with the other members of his family. He 
contrived, however, by means of a tangle of 
thread, in which was inclosed a piece of paper, 
perforated by a needle, to get a note to the 
queen, and to receive a few words in return. 
He, however, felt that his doom was sealed, and 
began from that hour to look forward to his im- 
mortality. He made his will, in which he spoke 
in most affecting terms of his wife, and his chil- 
dren, and his enemies, commending them all to 
the protection of God. 

An indescribable gloom now reigned through- 
out Paris. The allied armies on the frontiers 
were gradually advancing. The French troops 
were defeated. It was feared that the Royalists 
would rise, and join the invaders, and rescue the 
king. Desperadoes rioted through the streets, 
clamorins^ for the blood of their monarch. With 
knives and bludgeons they surrounded the Con- 
vention, threatening the lives of all if they did 
not consign the king to the guillotine. The day 
for the final decision came — Shall the king live 
or die ? On that day the heart of the metropo- 
lis throbbed as never before. It was the 20th of 
January, 1793. The Convention had already 
been in uninterrupted session for fifteen hours 
The clamor of the tumultuous and threatening: 



276 Maria Antoinette. [1793. 

The lung condemned to death. Emotion of Malesherbes. 

mob gave portentous warning of the doom which 
awaited the members of the Assembly should 
they dare to spare the life of the king. One 
by one the deputies mounted the tribune as 
their names were called in alphabetical order, 
and gave their vote. For some time death and 
exile seemed equally balanced. The results of 
the vote were read. The Convention comprised 
seven hundred and twenty-one voters, three 
hundred and thirty-four of whom voted for exile, 
and three hundred and eighty-seven for death. 
Louis sat alone in his prison, calmly await- 
ing the decision. He laid down that night 
knowing that his doom was sealed, and yet not 
knowing what that doom was. Malesherbes, 
the venerable friend who had volunteered for his 
defense, came to communicate the mournful 
tidings. He fell at the king's feet so overcome 
with emotion that he could not speak. The 
king understood the language of his silence and 
his tears, and uttered himself the sentence, 
*' Death." But a few moments elapsed before the 
officers of the Convention came, in all the pomp 
and parade of the land, to communicate to the 
king his doom to the guillotine in twenty -four 
hours. With perfect calmness, and fixing his 
eye immovably upon his judges, he heard the 



1793.] Execution of the King. 277 

The king's demands. The Abb6 Edgeworth. 

readinof of the sentence. The readins^ conolud- 
ed, the king presented a paper to the deputies, 
which he first read to them in the clear and 
commanding tones of a monarch upon his throne, 
demanding a respite of three days, in order to 
prepare to appear before God; also permission 
to see his family, and to converse with a priest. 
The Convention, angry at these requests, in- 
formed the king that he might see any priest 
he pleased, and that he might see his family, 
but that the execution must take place in twen- 
ty-four hours from the time of the sentence. 
Darkness had again fallen upon the city, when 
the minister of religion, M. Edgeworth, was led 
through the gloomy streets, to administer the 
consolations of piety to the condemned monarch. 
As he entered the apartment of the king, he fell 
at his feet and burst into tears. Louis for a 
moment wept, when, recovering himself, he said, 
" Pardon me this momentary weakness. I 
have so long lived among enemies, that habit 
has rendered me insensible to hatred. The sight 
of a faithful friend restores my sensibility, and 
moves me to tears in spite of myself" A long 
conversation ensued, in which the king inquir- 
ed, with the greatest interest, respecting the 
fate of his numerous friends. He read his will 



:^78 Maria Antoinette. [1793. 

The last interview. Angnish of the royal family. 

with the utmost deliberation, his voice falter- 
ing only when he alluded to his wife, children, 
and sister. At seven o'clock he was to have his 
last agonizing interview with his beloved fami- 
ly, and the thought of this agitated him far 
more than the prospect of the scaffold. 

The hour for the last sad meeting arrived. 
The king, having prepared his heart by prayer 
for the occasion, descended into a small unfur- 
nished room, where he was to meet his family. 
The door opened. The queen, leading his son, 
and Madame Elizabeth, leading his daughter, 
with trembling, fainting steps, entered the room. 
Not a word was uttered. The king threw him- 
self upon a bench, drew the queen to his right 
side, his sister to the left, and their arms en- 
circled his neck, and their heads hung upon his 
breast. The son climbed upon his father's 
Jinee, clinging with his arms franticly to his bo- 
som ; and the daughter, throwing herself at his 
feet, buried her head in his lap, her beautiful hair, 
in disordered ringlets, falling over her shoul- 
ders. A long half hour thus passed, in which 
not one single articulate word was spoken, but 
the anguish of these united hearts was express- 
ed in cries and lamentations which pierced 
through the stone walls of their prison, and 



1793.] ExKcuTioN 01' Tin: Ki.xo. :279 

Tlie last embrace. The separation 

were heard by passers by in the streets. But 
human nature could not long endure this intens- 
ity of agony. Total exhaustion ensued. Their 
tears dried upon their cheeks ; embraces, kisses, 
whispers of tenderness and love, and woe ensued, 
which lasted for two hours. 

The king then clasped them each in a long 
embrace, pressing his lips to their cheeks, and 
prepared to retire. Clinging to each other in 
an inseparable group, they approached the stair- 
case which the king was to ascend, when their 
piercing, heart-rending cries were renewed. 
The king, summoning all his fortitude to his 
aid, tore himself from them, and, in most ten- 
der accents, cried ^^ Adieu ! adieu l''^ hastily 
ascended the stairs and disappeared, having par- 
tially promised that he would see them again 
in the morning. The princess royal fell faint- 
ing upon the floor, and was borne insensible to 
her room. The king, reaching his apartment, 
threw himself into a chair, and exclaimed, 
" What an interview I have had ! Why do I 
love so fondly ? Alas ! why am I so fondly 
loved ? But we have now done with time, let 
us occupy ourselves with eternity." 

The hour of midnight had now arrived. The 
king threw himself upon his bed, and slept as 



280 Maria Antoinette. [1793. 

The king i-eceives the sacrament. Mementoes to his family. 

calmly, as peacefully, as though he had never 
known a sorrow. At five o'clock he was awak- 
ened, and received the sacrament of the Lord's 
Supper. Then, taking a small parcel from his 
bosom, and removing his wedding ring from his 
finger, he said to an attendant, " After my death, 
I wish you to give this seal to my son, this ring 
to the queen. Say to the queen, my dear chil- 
dren, and my sister, that I had promised to see 
them this morning, but that I desired to spare 
them the agony of this bitter separation twice 
over. How much it has cost me to part with- 
out receiving their last embraces !" Here his 
utterance was impeded by sobs. He then call- 
ed for some scissors, that he might cut ofi" locks 
of hair for his family. As he soon after stood 
by the stove, warming himself, he exclaimed, 
" How happy am I that I maintained my Chris- 
tian faith while on the throne ! What w^ould 
have been my condition now, were it not for 
this hope I" Soon faint gleams of the light of 
day began to penetrate through the iron bars 
and planks which guarded his windows. It was 
the signal for the beating of drums, the tramp 
of armed men, the rolling of heavy carriages of 
artillery, and the clattering of horses' hoofs. As 
the escort were arrivins: at their stations in the 



1793.] Execution of the King. 281 

The king summoned to execution. Brutality of the officers. 

court-yard of the Temple, a great noise was 
heard upon the stau'-case. '' They have come 
for me," said the king ; and, rising with perfect 
calmness and without a tremor, he opened the 
door. It was a false summons. Again and 
again, under various pretexts, the door was 
opened, until nine o'clock, when a tumultuous 
noise upon the stair-case announced the ap- 
proach of a body of armed men. Twelve mu- 
nicipal officers and twelve soldiers entered the 
apartment. The soldiers formed in two lines. 
The king, with a serene air, placed himself be- 
tween the double lines, and, looking to one of 
the municipal officers, said, presenting to him 
a roll of paper, which was his last will and test- 
ament, " I beg of you to transmit this paper to 
the queen." The municipal brutally replied, 
" That is no affair of mine. I am here to con- 
duct you to the scaffold." ''True," the king 
replied, and gave the paper to another, who re- 
ceived it. The king then, taking his hat and 
declining his coat, notwithstanding the severity 
of the cold, said, with a dignified gesture and 
a tone of command, "Let us go." The king 
led the way, followed rather than conducted by 
his escort. Descending the stairs, he met the 
turnkey, who had been disrespectful to him the 



282 Maria Antoinette. [1793. 

The brutal jailer. The king conducted to execution. 

night before, and whom the king had reproach- 
ed for his insolence. Louis immediately ap- 
proached the unfeeling jailor, and said to him, 
"Mathey, I was somewhat warm with you 
yesterday ; forgive me, for the sake of this hour." 
The imbruted monster turned upon his heel 
without any reply. 

As he crossed the court-yard of the Temple, 
he anxiously gazed upon the windows of the 
apartment where the queen, his sister, and 
his children were imprisoned. The windows 
were so guarded by plank shutters that no 
glances from the loved ones within could meet 
his eye. As the heart of the king dwelt upon 
the scenes of anguish which he knew must 
be passing there, it seemed for a moment that 
his fortitude would fail him. But, with a vi- 
olent effort, he recovered his composure and 
passed on. At the entrance of the Temple a 
carriage awaited the king. Two soldiers en- 
tered the carriage, and took seats by his side 
The king's confessor also rode in the carriage 
It was the 21st of January, 1793, a gloomy 
winter's day. Dark clouds lowered in the sky. 
Fog and smoke darkened the city. The atmos- 
phere was raw, and cold in the extreme. Na- 
ture seemed in harmony with man's deed of 



1793.] Execution of the King. 28-J 

A Bad procession. Admirable calmness of the king. 



cruelty and crime. The shops were' all closed, 
the markets were empty. No citizens were al- 
lowed to cross the streets on the line of march, 
or even to show themselves at the windows. 
Sixty drums kept up a deafening clamor as 
the vast procession of cavalry, infantry, and ar- 
tillery marched before, behind, and on each side 
of the carriage. Cannon, loaded with grape- 
shot, with matches lighted, guarded the main 
street on the line of march, to prevent the pos- 
sibility of an attempt even at rescue. The noise 
of the drums, the clatter of the iron hoofs of the 
horses, and the rumbling of the heavy pieces of 
artillery over the pavements prevented all dis- 
course, and the king, leaning back in his car- 
riage, surrendered himself to such reflections as 
the awful hour would naturally suggest. The 
perfect calmness of the king excited the admi- 
ration of those who were near his person, and a 
few hearts in the multitude, touched with pity, 
gave utterance to the cry of " Pardon I pardon !*' 
The sounds, however, died away in the throng, 
awakening no sympathetic response. As the 
procession moved along, no sound proceeded 
from human lips. A feeling of awe appeared 
to have taken possession of the whole city. The 
sentiment of loyalty had, for so many centu- 



284: Maria Antoinette. [1793. 

Attempt to rescue the king. Its failure* 

ries, pervaded the bosoms of the French people, 
that they could not conduct their monarch tc 
the scaffold without the deepest emotions of awe. 
A feeling of consternation oppressed every heart 
in view of the deed now to be perpetrated. But 
it was too late to retract. Perhaps there was 
not an individual in that vast throng who did 
not shudder in view of the crime of that day. 
At one spot on the line of march, seven or eight 
young men, in the spirit of desperate heroism 
which the occasion excited, hoping that the pity 
of the multitude would cause them to rally for 
their aid, broke through the line, sword in hand, 
and, rushing toward the carriage, shouted, 
*' Help for those who would save the king." 
Thr^-e thousand young men had enrolled them- 
selves in the conspiracy to respond to this call. 
But the preparations to resist such an attempt 
were too formidable to allow of any hopes of 
success. The few who heroically made the 
movement were instantly cut down. At the 
Place de la Revolution, one hundred thousand 
people were gathered in silence around the scaf- 
fold. The instrument of death, with its blood- 
red beams and posts, stood prominent above the 
multitudinous assemblage in the damp, murky 
air 



1793.] Execution of the King. 28-3 

The guillotine. Associations. 

The guillotine was erected in the center of 
the Place de la Revolution, directly in the front 
of the garden of the Tuileries. This celebrated 
instrument of death was invented in Italy by 
a physician named Guillotin, and from him re- 
ceived its name. A heavy ax, raised by ma- 
chinery between two upright posts, by the touch- 
ing of a spring fell, gliding down between two 
grooves, and severed the head from the body 
with the rapidity of lightning. The palace in 
which Louis had passed the hours of his infancy, 
and his childhood, and the days of his early 
grandeur ; the magnificent gardens of the pal- 
ace, where he had so often been greeted with 
acclamations; the spacious Elysian Fields, the 
pride of Paris, were all spread around, as if iii 
mockery of the sacrifice which was there to be 
offered. This whole space was crowded with a 
countless multitude, clustered upon the house 
tops, darkening the windows, swinging upon the 
trees, to witness the tragic spectacle of the be- 
heading of their king. Arrangements had been 
made to have the places immediately around 
the scaffold filled by the unrelenting foes of the 
monarch, that no emotions of pity might retard 
the bloody catastrophe. As the carriage ap- 
proached the place of execution, the hum of 



286 Maria Antoinette. [1793. 

The king's thoughtfulness. He undresses himself. 

the mighty multitude was hushed, and a silence, 
as of death, pervaded the immense throng. 

At last the carriage stopped at the foot of the 
scaffold. The king raised his eyes, and said to 
his confessor, in a low but calm tone, " We have 
arrived, I think." By a silent, gesture the con- 
fessor assented. The king, ever more mindful 
of others than of himself, placed his hand upon 
the knee of the confessor, and said to the officers 
and executioners who were crowded around the 
coach, " Gentlemen, I recommend to your pro- 
tection this gentleman. See that he be not in- 
sulted after my death. I charge you to watch 
over him." As no one made any reply, the king 
repeated the admonition in tones still more 
earnest. ''Yes! yes!" interrupted one, jeer- 
ingly, ''make your mind easy about that; we 
will take care of him. Let us alone for that." 
Three of the executioners then approached the 
king to undress him. He waved them from 
him with an authoritative gesture, and himself 
took off his coat, his cravat, and turned down 
his shirt collar. The executioners then came 
with cords to bind him to a plank. " What do 
you intend to do ?" he exclaimed, indignantly. 
" We intend to bind you," they replied, as they 
seized his hands. To be bound was an unex- 



I 



1793.] Execution of the King 287 

The king ascends the scaftbld. Ilis speech. 

pected indignity, at which the blood of the mon- 
arch recoiled. "No! no I" he exclaimed, "I 
will never submit to that. Do your business, 
but you shall not bind me." The king resisted. 
The executioners called for help. A scene of 
violence was about to ensue. The king turned 
his eye to his confessor, as if for counsel. '' Sire," 
said the Abbe Edgeworth, "submit unresist- 
ingly to this fresh outrage, as the last resem- 
blance to the Savior who is about to recom- 
pense your sufferings." Louis raised his eyes 
to heaven, and said, " Assuredly there needed 
nothing less than the example of the Savior 
to induce me to submit to such an indignity." 
He then reached his hands out to the execution- 
ers, and said, " Do as you will ; I will drink the 
cup to the dregs." Leaning upon the arm of 
his friend, he ascended the steep and slippery 
steps of the guillotine ; then, walking across 
the platform firmly, he looked for a moment in- 
tently upon the sharp blade of the ax, and turn- 
ing suddenly to the populace, exclaimed, in a 
voice clear and distinct, which penetrated to the 
remotest extremities of the square, "People, I 
die innocent of all the crimes laid to my charge. 
I pardon the authors of my death, and pray God 
that the blood you are about to shed may never 



288 Maria Antoinette. [1793. 

The last act in the tragedy. Burial of the king's body. 

fall again upon France. And you, unhappy- 
people — " Here the drums were ordered to beat, 
and the deafening clamor drowned his words. 
The king turned slowly to the guillotine and 
surrendered himself to the executioners. He 
was bound to the plank. '' The plank sunk. 
The blade glided. The head fell." 

One of the executioners seized the severed 
head of the monarch by the hair, and, raising 
the bloody trophy of their triumph, showed it to 
the shuddering throng, while the blood dripped 
from it on the scaffold. A few desperadoes 
dipped their sabers and the points of their pikes 
in the blood, and, waving them in the air, 
shouted "Vive la Eepublique !" The multi- 
tude, however, responded not to the cry. Ex- 
plosions of artillery announced to the distant 
parts of the city that the sacrifice was consum- 
mated. The remains of the monarch were con- 
veyed on a covered cart to the cemetery of the 
Madeleine, and lime was thrown into the grave, 
that the body might be speedily and entirely 
consumed. 

Over the grave where he was buried Napo- 
leon subsequently began the splendid Temple 
of Glory, in commemoration of the monarch 
and other victims who fell in the Revolution. 



I 



1793.] Execution of the King. 289 

The blood-red obelisk. Character of Louis. 

The completion of the edifice was frustrated by 
the fall of Napoleon. The Bourbons, however, 
on their restoration to the throne, finished the 
building, and it is now called the Church of the 
Madeleine, and it constitutes one of the most 
beautiful structures of Paris. The spot on 
which the monarch fell is now marked by a 
colossal obelisk of blood-red granite, which the 
French government, in 1833, transported from 
Thebes, in Upper Egypt. Louis was unques- 
tionably one of the most conscientious and up- 
right sovereigns who ever sat upon a throne. 
He loved his people, and earnestly desired to do 
every thing in his power to promote their wel- 
fare. And it can hardly be doubted that he 
was guided through life, and sustained through 
the awful trial of his (feath, by the principle 
of sincere piety. The tidings of his execution 
sent a thrill of horror through Europe, and fast- 
ened such a stigma upon Republicanism as to 
pave the way for the re-erection of the throne. 

T 



290 Maria Antoinette. [1793. 

Sufferings of the queen. Announcement of her husband's death. 



Chapter XL 

Trial and Execution of Maria An- 
toinette. 

"W^^HILE the king was suffering upon the 
* * guillotine, the queen, with Madame Eliz- 
abeth and the children, remained in their pris- 
on, in the endurance of anguish as severe as 
could be laid upon human hearts. The queen 
was plunged into a continued succession of 
swoons, and when she heard the booming of the 
artillery, which announced that the fatal ax 
had fallen and that her husband was headless, 
her companions feared that her life was also, at 
the same moment, to be extinguished. Soon 
the rumbling of wheels, the rolling of heavy 
pieces of cannon, and the shouts of the multi- 
tude penetrating through the bars of her cell, 
proclaimed the return of the procession from 
the scene of death. The queen was extremely 
anxious to be informed of all the details of the 
last moments of the king, but her foes refused 
her even this consolation. 

Days and nights now lingered slowly along, 



1793.] Execution of the Queen. 291 

Cruel decree. IMaria's defense of her boy, 

while the captives were perishing in monoto- 
nous misery. The severity of their imprison- 
ment was continually increased by new depri- 
vations. No communications from the world 
without were permitted to reach their ears. 
Shutters were so arranged that even the sky 
was scarcely visible, and no employment what- 
ever was allowed them to beguile their hours of 
woe. About four months after the death of the 
king, a loud noise was heard one night at the 
door of their chamber, and a band of armed men 
came tumultuously in, and read to the queen an 
order that her little son should be entirely sep- 
arated from her, and imprisoned by himself. 
The poor child, as he heard this cruel decree, 
was frantic mth terror, and, throwing himself 
into his mother's arms, shrieked out, "O moth- 
er I mother I mother ! do not abandon me to 
those men. They will kill me as they did papa." 
The queen was thrown into a perfect delirium 
of mental agony. She placed her child upon 
the bed, and, stationing herself before him, with 
eyes glaring like a tigress, and with almost su- 
perhuman energy, declared that they should tear 
her in pieces before they should touch her poor 
boy. The officers were subdued by this affect- 
ing exhibition of maternal love, and forbore vi- 



292 Maria Antoinette. [1793. 

The dauphin's cell. The queen summoned to the Conciergerie. 

olence. For two hours she thus contended 
against all their solicitations, until, entirely 
overcome by exhaustion, she fell in a swoon 
upon the floor. The child was then hurried 
from the apartment, and placed under the care 
of a brutal wretch, whose name, Simon, inhu- 
manity has immortalized. The unhappy child 
threw himself upon the floor of his cell, and for 
two days remained without any nourishment. 
The queen abandoned herself to utter despair. 
Madame Elizabeth and Maria Theresa perform- 
ed all the service of the chamber, making the 
beds, sweeping the room, and attending upon 
the queen. No importunities on the part of 
Maria Antoinette could obtain for her the fa- 
vor of a single interview with her child. 

Three more months passed slowly away, 
when, early in August, the queen was aroused 
from her sleep at midnight by armed men, with 
lanterns, bursting into her room. "With unfeel- 
ing barbarity, they ordered her to accompany 
them to the prison of the Conciergerie, the most 
dismal prison in Paris, where those doomed to 
die awaited their execution. The queen listen- 
ed, unmoved, to the order, for her heart had now 
become callous even to woe. Her daughter 
and Madame Elizabeth threw themselves at the 



1793.] Execution of the Queen. 293 

Painful partings. The Conciergerie. 

feet of the officers, and most pathetically, but 
unavailmgly, implored them not to deprive them 
of their only remaining solace. The queen was 
compelled to rise and dress in the presence of 
the wretches who exulted over her abasement. 
She clasped her daughter for one frantic moment 
convulsively to her heart, covered her with em- 
braces and kisses, spoke a few words of impas- 
sioned tenderness to her sister, and then, as if 
striving by violence to throw herself from the 
room, she inadvertently struck her forehead a 
severe blow against the low portal of the door. 
" Did you hurt you ?" inquired one of the men. 
''Oh no!" was the despairing reply, "nothing 
now can further harm me." 

A few li'ghts glimmered dimly from the street 
lamps as the queen entered the carriage, guard- 
ed by soldiers, and was conveyed through the 
somber streets to her last earthly abode. The 
prison of the Conciergerie consists of a series of 
subterranean dungeons beneath the floor of the 
Palais de Justice. More damp, dark, gloomy 
dens of stone and iron the imasfination can not 
conceive. Down the dripping and slippery 
steps she was led, groping her way by the feeble 
light of a tallow candle, until she approached, 
through a labyrinth of corridors, an iron door. It 



294 Maria Antoinette. [1793. 

Loathsome apartments of the queen. The jailer's wife. 

grated upon its hinges, and she was thrust in, 
two soldiers accompanying her, and the door was 
closed. It was midnight. The lantern gave 
just light enough to show her the horrors of her 
cell. The floor was covered with mud and 
water, while little streams trickled down the 
stone walls. A miserable pallet in one corner, 
an old pine table and one chair, were all the 
comforts the kingdom of France could afford its 
queen. 

The heart of the wife of the jailer was touched 
with compassion in view of this unmitigated 
misery. She did not dare to speak words of 
kindness, for they would be reported by the 
guard. She, however, prepared for her some 
food, ventured to loan her some needles, and 
a ball of worsted, and communicated intelli- 
gence of her daughter and son. The Commit- 
tee of Public Safety heard of these acts of mer- 
cy, and the jailer and his wife were immediately 
arrested, and plunged into those dungeons into 
which they would have allowed the spirit of hu- 
manity to enter. The shoes of the queen, satu- 
rated with water, soon fell from her feet. Her 
stockings and her dress, from the humidity of 
the air, were in tatters. Two soldiers, with 
drawn swords, were stationed by her side night 



1793.] Execution of the Queen. 297 

The jailer's duughter. The garter. 

and day, with the command. never, even for one 
moment, to turn their eyes from her. The 
daughter of the new jailer, touched with com- 
passion, and regardless of the fate of the prede- 
cessors of her parents, entered her cell every 
morning to dress her whitened locks, which sor- 
row had bleached. The queen ventured one 
day to solicit an additional counterpane for her 
bed. ''How dare you make such a request?" 
replied the solicitor -general of the commune ; 
" you deserve to be §ent to the guillotine I" The 
^ queen succeeded secretly, by means of a tooth- 
pick, which she converted into a tapestry needle, 
in plaiting a garter from thread which she 
plucked from an old woollen coverlet. This 
memorial of a mother's love she contrived, by 
stratagem, to transmit to her daughter. This 
was the richest legacy the daughter of Maria 
Theresa and the Queen of France could be- 
queath to her child. That garter is still pre- 
served as a sacred relic by those who revere the 
memory and commiserate the misfortunes of 
Maria Antoinette. 

Two months of this all but insupportable im- 
prisonment passed away, when, early in October, 
she was brought from her dungeon below to the 
court-room above for her trial. Her accusation 



298 Maria Antoinette. [1793. 

Dignity of the queen during her trial. She is condemned to death. 

was that she abhorred the revolution which had 
beheaded her husband, and plunged her and her 
whole family into woes, the remembrance of 
which it would seem that even eternity could 
hardly efface. The queen condescended to no 
defense. She appeared before her accusers in 
the calm dignity of despair, and yet with a spirit 
as unbroken and queenly as when she moved in 
the gilded saloons of Versailles. The queen 
was called to hear her sentence. It was death 
within tv/enty-four hours. Not the tremor of 
a muscle showed the slightest agitation as the» 
mob, with clappings and shoutings, manifested 
their hatred for their victim, and their exulta- 
tion at her doom. Insults and execrations fol- 
lowed her to the stair-case as she descended 
again to her dungeon. It was four o'clock in 
the morning. A few rays of the dawning day 
struggled through the bars of her prison win- 
dow, and she seemed to smile with a faint ex- 
pression of pleasure at the thought that her last 
day of earthly woe had dawned. She called 
for pen and ink, and wrote a very affecting let- 
ter to her sister and children. Having finished 
the letter, she repeatedly and passionately kiss- 
ed it, as if it were the last link which bound 
her to the loved ones from whom she was so 



1793.] Execution of the Queen. 299 

The queen dressed for the guillotiiie. Her hands bound. 

soon to be separated by death. She then, as if 
done with earth, kneeled down and prayed, and, 
with a tranquillized spirit, threw herself upon 
her bed, and fell into a profound slumber. 

An hour or two passed away, when the kind 
daughter of the jailer came, with weeping eyes 
and a throbbing heart, into the cell to dress the 
queen for the guillotine. It was the 14th of 
October, 1793. Maria Antoinette arose with 
alacrity, and, laying aside her prison-worn gar- 
ments of mourning, put on her only remaining 
dress, a white robe, emblematic of the joy with 
which she bade adieu to earth. A white hand- 
kerchief was spread over her shoulders, and a 
white cap, bound to her head by a black ribbon, 
covered her hair. It was a cold and foggy morn- 
ing, and the moaning wind drove clouds of mist 
through the streets. But the day had hardly 
dawned before crowds of people thronged the 
prison, and all Paris seemed in motion to en- 
joy the spectacle of the sufferings of their queen. 
At eleven o'clock the executioners entered her 
cell, bound her hands behind her, and led her 
out from the prison. The queen had nerved her 
heart to die in the spirit of defiance to her foes. 
She thought, perhaps, too much of man, too lit- 
tle of God. Queenly pride rather than Chris- 



300 Maria Antoinette. [1793. 

Car of the condemned. Indignities heaped upon the queen. 

tian resignation inspired her soul. Expecting 
to be conducted to the scaffold, as the king had 
been, in a close carriage, she, for a moment, 
recoiled with horror when she was led to the 
ignominious car of the condemned, and was 
commanded to enter it. This car was much 
like a common hay cart, entirely open, and 
guarded by a rude but strong railing. The fe- 
male furies who surrounded her shouted with 
laughter, and cried out incessantly, " Down 
with the Austrian I" " Down with the Austri- 
an!" The queen was alone in the cart. Her 
hands were tied behind her. She could not sit 
down. She could not support herself against 
the jolting of the cart upon the rough pavement. 
The car started. The queen was thrown from 
her equilibrium. She fell this way and that 
way. Her bonnet was crowded over her eyes. 
Her gray locks floated in the damp morning air. 
Her coarse dress, disarranged, excited derision. 
As she was violently pitched to and fro, not- 
withstanding her desperate endeavors to retain 
the dignity of her appearance, the wretches 
shouted, " These are not your cushions of Tri- 
anon." It was a long ride, through the infuri- 
ated mob, to the scaffold, which was reared di- 
rectly in front of the garden of the Tuileries. 



1793.] Execution of the Queen. 301 



Arrival at the guillotine. The queen's composure. 

As the car arrived at the entrance of the gar- 
dens of the palace where Maria had passed 
through so many vicissitudes of joy and woe, it 
stopped for a moment, apparently that the queen 
might experience a few more emotions of tor- 
ture as she contemplated the abode of her past 
grandeur. Maria leaned back upon the rail- 
ing, utterly regardless of the clamor around her, 
and fixed her eyes long and steadfastly upon 
the theater of all her former happiness. The 
thought of her husband, her children, her home, 
for a moment overcame her, and a few tears 
trickled down her cheeks and fell upon the floor 
of the cart. But, instantly regaining her com- 
posure, she looked around again upon the mul- 
titude, waving like an ocean over the whole am- 
phitheater, with an air of majesty expressive of 
her superiority over all earthly ills. A few 
turns more of the wheels brought her to the 
foot of the guillotine. It was upon the same 
spot where her husband had fallen. She calm- 
ly, firmly looked at the dreadful instrument of 
death, scrutinizing all its arrangements, and 
contemplating, almost with an air of satisfac- 
tion, the sharp and glittering knife, which was 
so soon to terminate all her earthly sufferings. 
Two of the executioners assisted her by the el- 



302 Maria Antoinette. [1793 

The queen's pi-ayer. Maternal love 

bows as she endeavored to descend from the cart. 
She waited for no directions, but with a firm 
and yet not hurried tread, ascended the steps 
of the scaffold. By accident, she trod upon the 
foot of one of the executioners. '' Pardon me !" 
she exclaimed, with all the affability and grace 
with which she would have apologized to a cour- 
tier in the midst of the social festivities of the 
Little Trianon. She kneeled down, raised her 
eyes to heaven, and in a low but heart-rending 
prayer, all forgetful of herself, implored God to 
protect her sister and her helpless children. 
She was deaf to the clamor of the infuriate 
mob around her. She was insensible to the dis- 
honor of her own appearance, with disheveled 
locks blinding her eyes, and with her faded gar- 
ments crumpled and disarranged by the rough 
jostling of the cart. She forgot the scaffold on 
which she stood, the cords which bound her 
hands, the blood-thirsty executioners by her side, 
the fatal knife gleaming above her head. Her 
thoughts, true to the irrepressible instincts of 
maternal love, wandered back to the dungeons 
from whence she had emerged, and lingered 
with anguish around the pallets where her or- 
phan, friendless, persecuted children were en- 
tombed. Her last prayer was the prayer of 
agony. She rose from her knees, and, turning 



1793.] Execution of the Queen. 308 

The last adieu. End of the tragedy. 

her eyes toward the tower of the Temple, and 
speaking in tones which would have pierced 
any hearts but those which surrounded her, ex- 
claimed, '' Adieu I adieu ! once again, my dear 
children. I go to rejoin your father." 

She was bound to the plank. Slowly it de- 
scended till the neck of the queen was brought 
under the groove down which the fatal ax was 
to glide. The executioner, hardened by deeds 
of daily butchery, could not look upon this spec- 
tacle of the misery of the Queen of France un- 
moved. His hand trembled as he endeavored 
to disengage the ax, and there was a moment's 
delay. The ax fell. The dissevered head 
dropped into the basket placed to receive it. 
The executioner seized it by the hair, gushing 
with blood, raised it high above his head, and 
walked around the elevated platform of the guil- 
lotine, exhibiting the bloody trophy to the as- 
sembled multitude. One lons^ shout of ^' Vive 
la Republique !" rent the air, and the long and 
dreadful tragedy of the life of Maria Antoinette 
was closed. 

The remains of the queen were thrown into 
a pine coffin and hurried to an obscure burial. 
Upon the records of the Church of La Made- 
leine we now read the charge, '•^For the coffin 
of the Widoiv Capet^ seven francsy 



304 Maria Antoinette. [1793. 

The dauphin and the princesses. Painful uncertainty. 



Chapter XII. 

The Princess Elizabeth, the Dau- 
phin, AND the Princess Royal. 

TylTIIEN Maria Antoinette was taken from 
^ ' the Temple and consigned to the dun- 
geons of the Conciergerie, there to await her 
trial for her life, the dauphin was imprisoned 
by himself, though but a child seven years of 
age, in a gloomy cell, where he was entirely ex- 
cluded from any communication with his aunt 
and sister. The two latter princesses remained 
in the room from which the queen had been 
taken. They were, however, in the most pain- 
ful uncertainty respecting her fate. Their jail- 
ers were commanded to give them no informa- 
tion whatever respecting the external world. 
Their prison was a living tomb, in which they 
were allowed to breathe, and that was all. The 
Princess Elizabeth had surmised, from various 
little incidents, what had been the fate of the 
queen, but she tried to cheer the young, and af- 
fectionate, and still beautiful child with the 
hope that her mother yet lived, and that they 



179o.] The Royal Princesses. 305 



Sufterings of the princesses. Their dismal cell. 

might meet again. Eight months of the most 
dreary captivity rolled slowly away. It was 
winter, and yet they were allowed no fire to 
dispel the gloom and the chill of their cell. 
They were deprived of all books. They were 
not allowed the use of pens or paper. The long 
winter nights came. In their cell there was 
but a few hours during which the rays of the 
sun struggled faintly through the barred win- 
dows. Night, long, dismal, impenetrable, like 
that of Egypt, enveloped them for fifteen hours. 
They counted the strokes of the clocks in the 
distant churches. They listened to the hum of 
the vast and mighty metropolis, like the roar of 
the surf upon the shore. Reflections full of 
horror crowded upon them. The king was be- 
headed. The queen was, they knew not where, 
either dead or in the endurance of the most fear- 
ful sufferings. The young dauphin was impris- 
oned by himself, and they knew only that the 
gentle, affectionate, idolized child was exposed to 
every cruelty which barbarism could inflict upon 
him. What was to be their own fate ? Were 
they to linger out the remnant of their days in 
this wretched captivity ? Would their inhuman 
jailers envy them the consolation they found in 
each other's arms, and .separate them? Were 

U 



806 Maria Antoinette. [1793. 

Painful thoughts. Unwelcome visitors. 

they also to perish upon the guillotine, where 
nearly all whom they had loved had already per- 
ished ? Were they ever to be released ? If so, 
what joy could there remain on earth for them 
after their awful sufferings and bereavements I 
Woes, such as they had endured, were too deep 
ever to be effaced from the mind. Nearly eight 
months thus lingered slowly along, in which 
they saw only brutal and insulting jailers, ate 
the coarsest food, and were clothed in the un- 
washed and tattered garb of the prison. Time 
seemed to have stopped its flight, and to have 
changed into a weary, woeful eternity. 

On the 9th of May, the Princess Elizabeth 
and her niece, who had received the name of 
Maria Theresa in memory of her grandmother, 
were retiring to bed. They were enveloped in 
midnight darkness. With ^their arms around 
each other's necks, they were kneeling at the 
foot of the bed in prayer. Suddenly a great 
noise was heard at the door, accompanied with 
repeated and violent blows, abnost heavy enough 
to shiver the door from its hinges. Madame 
Elizabeth hastened to withdraw a bolt, which 
constituted an inner fastening, when some sol- 
diers rushed in with their lanterns, and said to 
Madame Elizabeth, "You must immediately 



1793.] The Royal Princesses. 307 

The princesses separated. Bnitality of the soldiers. 

follow us." '' And my niece," replied the prin- 
cess, ever forgetful of herself in her thoughtful- 
ness for others, '' can she go too ?" " We want 
you only now !" was the answer ; "we will take 
care of her by-and-by." The aunt foresaw that 
the hour for the long-dreaded separation had 
come. She threw her arms around the neck of 
the trembling maiden, and wept in uncontrolla- 
ble grief. The brutal soldiers, unmoved by 
these tears, loaded them both with reproaches 
and insults, as belonging to the detested race of 
kings, and imperiously commanded the Princess 
Elizabeth immediately to depart. She endeav- 
ored to whisper a word of hope into the ear of 
her despairing niece. "I shall probably soon 
return again, my dear Maria." "No, cito- 
yenne, you won't," rudely interrupted one of the 
jailers ; " you will never ascend these stairs 
again. So take your bonnet and come down." 
Bathing the face of the young girl with her 
tears, invoking the blessing of heaven upon her, 
turning again and again to enfold her in a last 
embrace, she was led out by the soldiers, and 
conducted down the dark and damp stairs to 
the gate. Here the soldiers rudely searched 
her person anew, and then thrust her into a 
carriage. It was midnight. Tlio carriage was 



308 Maria Antoinette. [1793. 

Elizabeth taken before the tribunal. A group of noble captives. 

driven violently through the deserted streets to 
the Conciergerie. The Tribunal was, even at 
that hour, in session, for in those days of blood, 
when the slide of the guillotine had no repose 
from morning till night, the day did not contain 
hours enough for the work of condemnation. 
The princess was conducted immediately into 
the presence of the Revolutionary Tribunal. A 
few questions were asked her, and then she was 
led into a hall, and left to catch such repose as 
she could upon the bench where Maria An- 
toinette but a few months before had awaited 
her condemnation. 

The morning had hardly dawned when she 
was again conducted to the Tribunal, in com- 
pany with twenty-four others, of every age and 
of both sexes, whose crime was that they were 
nobles. Ladies were there, illustrious in virtue 
and rank, who had formerly graced the brilliant 
assemblies of the Tuileries and of Versailles. 
Young men, whose family names had been 
renowned for ages, stood there to answer for 
the crime of possessing a distinguished name. 
While looking upon this group of nobles, gath- 
ered before that merciless tribunal, where judg- 
ment was almost certain condemnation, the pub- 
lic accuser, with cruel irony, remarked, '^ Gf 



1793.] The Royal Princesses. 309 

Trial of Madame Elizabetli. Her condemnation. 

what can Madame Elizabeth complain, when 
she sees herself at the foot of the guillotine, sur- 
rounded by her faithful nobility ? She can now 
fancy herself back again in the gay festivities 
of Versailles." 

The charges against Elizabeth were, that she 
was the sister of a tyrant, and that she loved 
that royal family whom the nation had adjudged 
not fit to live. " If my brother had been the 
tyrant you declare him to have been," the prin- 
cess remarked, " you would not be where you 
now are, nor I before you." But it is vain for 
the lamb to plead with the wolf. She was con- 
demned to die. She listened to her sentence 
with the most perfect composure, and almost 
with satisfaction. The only favor she asked 
was, that she might see a priest, and receive the 
consolations of religion, according to the faith 
she professed. Even this request was denied 
her. The crime of loyalty was of too deep a 
dye to allow of any, the slightest mitigation of 
punishment. From the judgment hall she was 
led down into one of the dunsreons of the Con- 
ciergerie, where, with the rest of her compan- 
ions, she awaited the execution of their doom. 
It was, indeed, a melancholy meeting. These 
illustrious captives had formerly dwelt in the 



310 Maria Antoinette. [1793. 

Sad reverses. Character of Madame Elizabeth. 

highest splendor which earth allows. They had 
met in regal palaces, surrounded by all the pomp 
and grandeur of courts. Now, after months of 
the most cruel imprisonment, after passing 
through scenes of the most protracted woe, hav- 
ing been deprived of all their possessions, of all 
their ancestral honors, having surrendered one 
after another of those most dear to them to the 
guillotine, they were collected in a dark and 
foul dungeon, cold and wet, hungry and ex- 
hausted, to be conveyed in a few hours, in the 
cart of the condemned, to the scaffold. The 
character of Elizabeth was such, her weaned- 
ness from the world, her mild and heavenly spir- 
it, as to have secured almost the idolatrous ven- 
eration of those who knew her. The compan- 
ions of her misfortunes now clustered around 
her, as the one to whom they must look for sup- 
port and strength in this awful hour. The 
princess, more calm and peaceful even than 
when surrounded by all the splendors of royalty, 
looked forward joyfully to the guillotine as the 
couch of sweet and lasting repose. Faith ena- 
bled her to leave the children, now the only tie 
which bound her to earth, in the hands of God, 
and, conscious that she had done with all things 
earthly, her thoughts were directed to those 



1793.] The Royal Princesses. Cll 

Madame Elizabeth at the guillotine. Execution of her companions. 

mansions of rest which, she doubted not, were 
in reserve for her. She bowed her head with a 
smile to the executioner as he cut off her long 
tresses in preparation for the knife. The locks 
fell at her feet, and even the executioners divid- 
ed them among them as memorials of her love- 
liness and virtue. 

Her hands were bound behind her, and she 
was placed in the cart with twenty-two com- 
panions of noble birth, and she was doomed to 
wait at the foot of the scaffold till all those 
heads had fallen, before her turn could come. 
The youth, the beauty, the innocence, the spot- 
less life of the princess seemed to disarm the 
populace of their rage, and they gazed upon her 
in silence and almost with admiration. Her 
name had ever been connected with every thing 
that was pure and kind. And even a feeling 
of remorse seemed to pervade the concourse sur- 
rounding the scaffold in view of the sacrifice of 
so blameless a victim. 

One by one, as the condemned ascended the 
steps of the guillotine to submit to the dreadful 
execution, they approached Elizabeth and en- 
circled her in an affectionate embrace. At last 
every head had fallen beneath the ax but that 
of Elizabeth. The mutilated bodies were be- 



312 Maria Antoinette. [1793 

Death of Madame Elizabeth. Her faith and piety 

fore her. The gory heads of those she loved 
were in a pile by her side. It was a sight to 
shock the stoutest nerves. But the princess, 
sustained by that Christian faith which had 
supported her through her almost unparalleled 
woes, apparently without a tremor ascended the 
steps, looked calmly and benign antly around 
upon the vast multitude, as if in her heart she 
was imploring God's blessing upon them, and 
surrendered herself to the executioner. Proba- 
bly not a purer spirit nor one more attuned for 
heaven existed in France than the one which 
then ascended from the scaffold, we trust, to 
the bosom of God. Maria Antoinette died with 
the pride and the firmness of the invincible 
queen. Elizabeth yielded herself to the spirit 
of submissive piety, and fell asleep upon the bo- 
som of her Savior. Our thoughts would more 
willingly follow her to those mansions of rest, 
where faith instructs us that she winged her 
flight, than turn again to the prison where the 
orphan children lingered in solitude and woe. 

Young Louis was left in one of the apart- 
ments of the Temple, under the care of the bru- 
tal Simon, whose commission it was to get quit 
of him. To send a child of seven years of age 
to the guillotine because his father was a king, 



1793.] Tii.E Royal Princesses. 313 

Situation of the dauphin. ITie brute Hinion. 

was a step which the Revolutionary Tribunal 
then was hardly willing to take, out of regard 
to the opinions of the world. It would be hard- 
ly consistent with the character of the great na- 
tion to poison the child ; and yet, while he lived, 
there was a rallying point around which the 
sympathies of royalty could congregate. Louis 
must die! Simon must not kill him; he must 
not poison him ; he must get quit of him. The 
public safety demands it. Patriotism demands 
it. In the accomplishment of this undertaking, 
the young prince was shut up alone, entirely 
alone, like a caged beast, in one of the upper 
rooms of a tower of the Temple. There he was 
left, day and night, week after week, and month 
after month, with no companion, with no em- 
ployment, with no food for thought, with no op- 
portunity for exercise or to breathe the fresh air. 
A flagon of water, seldom replenished, was 
placed at his bedside. The door was occasion- 
ally half opened, and some coarse food thrown 
in to the poor child. He never washed himself. 
For more than a year, his clothes, his shirt, and 
his shoes had never been changed. For six 
months his bed was not made, and the unhap- 
py child, consigned to this living burial, remain- 
ed silent and immovable upon the impure pal- 



814 Maria Antoinette. [1795. 

Iziliuman treatment of the dauphin. He becomes insane. 

let, breathing his own infection. By long in- 
activity his limbs became rigid. His mind, by 
the dead inaction which succeeded terror, lost 
its energy, and became, not only brutalized, but 
depraved. The noble child of warm affections, 
polished manners, and active intellect, was thus 
degraded far below the ordinary condition of 
the brute. 

Thus eighteen months rolled away, and the 
poor boy became insane through mental ex- 
haustion and debility. But even then he re- 
tained a lively sense of gratitude for every word 
or act of kindness. At one time, the inhuman 
wretch who was endeavoring by slow torture to 
conduct this child to the grave, seized him by 
the hair, and threatened to dash out his brains 
against the wall. A surgeon, M. Naulin, who 
chanced to be near by, interfered in behalf of 
the unhappy victim, and rescued him from the 
rage of the tyrant. Two pears that evening 
were given to the half-famished child for his 
supper. He hid them under his pillow, and 
went supperless to sleep. The next day he pre- 
sented the two pears to his benefactor, very po- 
litely expressing his regret that he had no other 
means of manifesting his gratitude. 

Torrents of blood were dailv flowin£^ from 



1795.] The Royal Princesses. 315 

The reaction. Change in the dauphin's treatment. 

the guillotine. Illustrious wealth, or rank, or 
virtue, condemned the possessor to the scaf- 
fold. Terror held its reign in every bosom. 
No one was safe. The public became weary of 
these scenes of horror. A reaction commenced. 
Many of the firmest Republicans, overawed by 
the tyranny of the mob, began secretly to long 
for the repose which kingly power had given the 
nation. Sympathy was excited for the woes of 
the imprisoned prince. It is difficult to record, 
without pleasure, that one of the first acts of 
this returning sense of humanity consisted in 
leading the barbarous Simon to the guillotine. 
History does not inform us whether he shud- 
dered in view of his crimes under the ax. But 
his crimes were almost too great for humanity 
to forgive. Louis was placed under the care of 
more merciful keepers. His wasted frame and 
delirious mind, generous and affectionate even 
in its delirium, moved their sympathy and their 
tears. They washed and dressed their little 
prisoner ; spake to him in tones of kindness ; 
soothed and comforted him. Louis gazed upon 
them with a vacant air, hardly knowing, after 
more than two years of hatred, execration, and 
abuse, what to make of expressions of gentle- 
ness and mercv. But it was too late. Simon 



316 Maria Antoinette. [1795. 

Death of the dauphin. Sympathy awakened by iL 

had faithfully executed his task. The consti- 
tution of the young prince was hopelessly under- 
mined. He was seized with a fever. The Con- 
vention, ashamed of the past, sent the celebrated 
physician Dessault to visit him. The patient, 
inured to suffering, with blighted hopes and a 
crushed heart, lingered in silence and patience 
for a few days upon his bed, and died on the 9th 
of June, 1795, in the tenth year of his age. 

The change which had commenced in the 
public mind, preparing the way for Napoleon to 
quell these revolutionary horrors, was so great, 
that a very general feeling of sympathy was 
awakened by the death of the young prince, and 
a feeling of remorse pervaded the conscience of 
the nation. History contains few stories more 
sorrowful than the death of this child. To the 
limited vision of mortals, it is indeed inexplica- 
ble why he should have been left by that God, 
who rules in infinite wisdom and love, to so 
dreadful a fate. For the solution of this and all 
other inexplicable mysteries of the divine gov- 
ernment, we must look forward to our immor- 
tality. 

But we must return to Maria Theresa. We 
left her at midnight, delirious with grief and 
terror, upon the pallet of her cell, her aunt 



1795.] The Royal Princesses. 317 

Situation of the princess royal. Her deep sufferings. 

having just been torn from her embrace. Even 
the ravages of captivity had not destroyed the 
exceeding beauty of the princess, now sixteen 
years of age. The slow hours of that night of 
anguish lingered away, and the morning, cheer- 
less and companionless, dawned through the 
grated window of her prison upon her woe. 
Thus days and nights went and came. She 
knew not what had been the fate of her mother. 
She knew not what doom awaited her aunt. 
She could have no intercourse with her brother, 
who she only knew was suffering every con- 
ceivable outrage in another part of the prison. 
Her food was brought to her by those who loved 
to show their brutal power over the daughter 
of a long line of kings. Weeks and months 
thus rolled on without any alleviation — without 
the slightest gleam of joy or hope penetrating 
the midnight gloom of her cell. It is impossible 
for the imagination to paint the anguish en- 
dured by this beautiful, intellectual, affection- 
ate, and highly-accomplished princess during 
these weary months of solitude and captivity. 
Every indulgence was withheld from her, and 
conscious existence became the most weighty 
woe. Thus a year and a half lingered slowly 
away, while the reign of terror was holding its 



318 Maria Antoinette. [1795. 

Sympathy for the princess royal. She is released. 

high carnival in the streets of blood-deluged 
Paris, and every friend of royalty, of whatever 
sex or age, all over the empire, v^as hunted down 
without mercy. 

When the reaction awakened by these hor- 
rors commenced in the public mind, the rigor 
of her captivity was somewhat abated. The 
death of her brother roused in her behalf, as the 
only remaining child of the wrecked and ruined 
family, such a feeling of sympathy, that the As- 
sembly consented to regard her as a prisoner of 
war, and to exchange her with the Austrian 
government for four French officers whom they 
held as prisoners. Maria Theresa was led, pale, 
pensive, heart-broken, hopeless, from her cell, 
and placed in the hands of the relatives of her 
mother. But her griefs had been so deep, her 
bereavements so utter and heart-rending, that 
this change seemed to her only a mitigation of 
misery, and not an accession of joy. She was 
informed of the death of her mother and her 
aunt, and, weeping over her desolation, she 
emerged from her prison cell and entered the 
carriage to return to the palaces of Austria, 
where her unhappy mother had passed the 
hours of her childhood. As she rode along 
through the green fields and looked out upon 



179f5.] TiiE Royal Princesses. 319 

Arrival of the princess royal iii Vienna. Her settled melancholy. 

the blue sky, through which the summer's sun 
was shedding its beams — as she felt the pure 
air, from which she had so long been excluded, 
fanning her cheeks, and realized that she was 
safe from insults and once more free, anguish 
gave place to a calm and settled melancholy. 
She arrived in Vienna. Love and admiration 
encircled her. Every heart vied in endeavors 
to lavish soothing words and delicate attentions 
upon this stricken child of grief. She buried her 
face in the bosoms of those thus soliciting her 
love, her eyes were flooded with tears, and she 
sobbed with almost a bursting heart. After her 
arrival in Vienna, one full year passed away be- 
fore a smile could ever be won to visit her cheek. 
Woes such as she had endured pass not away 
like the mists of the morning. The hideous 
dream haunted her by day and by night. The 
headless trunks of her father, her mother, and her 
aunt were ever before her eyes. Her beloved 
brother, suffering and dying upon a beggar's bed, 
w^as ever present in her dreams while reposing 
under the imperial canopy of the Austrian kings. 
The past had been so long and so awful that 
it seemed an ever-living reality. The sudden 
change she could hardly credit but as the de- 
lirium of a dream. 



820 Maria Antoinette. [1795. 

Love felt for Maria. She recovers her cheerfulness. 

Time, however, will diminish the poignancy 
of every sorrow save those of remorse. Maria 
was now again in a regal palace, surrounded 
with every luxury which earth could confer. 
She was young and beautiful. She was be- 
loved, and almost adored. Every monarch, 
every prince, every embassador from a foreign 
court, delighted to pay her especial honor. No 
heart throbbed near her but with the desire to 
render her some compensation for the wrongs 
and the woes which had fallen upon her youth- 
ful and guileless heart. Wherever she appeared, 
she was greeted with love and homage. Those 
who had never seen her would willingly peril 
their lives in any way to serve her. Thus was 
she raised to consideration, and enshrined in the 
affections of every soul retaining one spark of 
noble feeling. The past receded farther and 
farther from her view, the present arose more 
and more vividly before the eye. Joy gradually 
returned to that bosom from which it had so 
long been a stranger. The flowers bloomed 
beautifully before her eyes, the birds sung me- 
lodiously in her ears. The fair face of creation, 
with mountain, vale, and river, beguiled her 
thoughts, and introduced images of peace and 
beauty to dispel the hideous phantoms of dun- 



1795.] The Royal Princesses. 321 

Mnria's marriage. Iler present residence. 

geons and misery. The morning driven -around:'^ 
the beautiful metropolis ptlie evening serenade ; 
the moonlight sail; and, above^all, the voice^of 
love^ reanimated her heart, and rousedjh«r-affec- 
tions from tlie tomb in which they so long had 
slumbered. The smile of youth, though still 
pensive and melancholy, began to illumine her 
saddened features. Hope of future joy rose 
to cheer her. The Due d'Angouleme, son of 
Charles X., sought her as his bride, and she was 
led in tranquil happiness to the altar, feeling as 
few can feel the luxury of being tenderly beloved. 
Upon the fall of Napoleon she returned to 
France with the Bourbon family, and again 
moved, with smiles of sadness, among the bril- 
liant throng crowding the palaces of her ances- 
tors. The Revolution of 1830, which drove the 
Bourbons again from the throne of France, drove 
Maria Theresa, now Duchesse d'Angouleme, 
again into exile. She resided for a time with 
her husband in the Castle of Holyrood, in Scot- 
land, under the name of the Count and Count- 
ess of Main ; but the climate being too severe 
for her constitution, she left that region for 
Vienna. There she was received with every 
possible demonstration of respect and affection. 
She now resides in the imperial castle of Prague, 



322 Maria Antoinette. [1795 

Advanced age of Maria. Still retains traces of her early sorrows. 

a venerated widow, having passed through three- 
score years and ten of a more varied life than is 
often experienced by mortals. Even to the 
present hour, her furrowed cheeks retain the 
traces, in their pensive expression, of the sorrow 
which darkened her early years. 



The End 



19 ^ 






.-^v^ 



<^^ 






.^ ■% 



.-N^ 



'^ V 



^^ 



'^^ .^^' 









av 



p. 



:% 



■2, "/ . s 






•'^^ v^^ 



#;,- ^^-v -^c^ 



>. "^^ 



,\>' "^^ 









-; ^-^ 



.-^^ 









•*..^^ 



-iS" 






.^^ -^c^ 



